Spring Cleaning - Baby Steps

It must be the start of Spring that’s gets us all eager to clean and de-clutter and update our spaces.  I am itching to continue the remainder of the year with a house that is tidier and better organized as at the moment, I feel unsettled and always one step behind where I’d like to be and what I want to achieve.  I'm eager to freshen up not only our home, but also my wardrobe, my systems for house-keeping and my corner of blogland.  However, with limited time and so many other priorities demanding my attention, I’ve decided to be realistic and take ‘baby steps’ towards achieving my spring cleaning goals this year.

First up has been my blog makeover.  While I'm not entirely finished yet, I'm pretty happy with how things are looking here so far.  I have a feeling my new header might still be a tad blurry so I have to work on making that crisper.  However, I'm by no means a graphic designer and after putting together what I've done, I can't quite remember how I did what I did.  Eventually, I'd like to be able to update the three ‘polaroid shots’ every month or so to keep things looking fresh in this little space.  As for other additions, my social media buttons are finally up but not all active yet… (this RSS business is seriously doing my head in!) and I need a new profile photo (one that's not quite so large and in-your-face).  But, I’m getting there… baby steps. 

As well as my blog, I'm eager to have a good spring clean of our home. I’m tired of not being able to locate paperwork.  I’m tired of being surrounded by clutter that is yet to be sorted and ‘dealt with’ (eg. things we no longer want or need).  I’m tired of missing deadlines and forgetting dates.  I’m tired of feeling as though I’m not ‘on top of things’. 

And so yesterday, I decided I was tired of making excuses and took my first baby step towards achieving my mammoth spring cleaning goals.

I started with our laundry cupboards.  I pulled everything out, wiped down surfaces, sorted, compartmentalised, labelled and simplified.  I rationalised the use and placement of every single item that I put back onto those shelves and have not only created more storage space, but also come up with a few tiny ways to make laundry and cleaning a bit more ‘user friendly’ for myself.  Once I buy a few more storage baskets and finish with this room, my next ‘baby step’ is to catch up on sorting out paperwork yet to be put into our filing cabinet.   

Rather than my usual weekly project, I’ve decided that for the coming weeks and months, my focus will be on-going and will simply be to spring clean.  With Grace and I now having our ‘crafternoons’, I will still be allocating time to my hobbies and creative pursuits and any other areas of home life that are bothering me are all able to be covered by my new focus word anyway.

Are you a fan of spring cleaning?  Which area of your life are you desperate to freshen up at the moment?

Photography above by Christina Richards Photography.  Floral arrangement by Studio Choo.

Image found via Style Me Pretty

Bathroom Bothers – Is It Just Me?

There are a few ‘issues’ I have lately with our bathroom which are really starting to annoy me and I’m wondering whether anyone else out there has the same problems or if it’s just me…

The bathroom is way down my list of favourite rooms in winter.  My biggest reason for this is WET TOWELS!  I am sick of jumping out of the shower only to have to dry myself with one that is damp.  On occasion, I’ve draped them over a chair in front of our heater but I wish there was an easier way to ensure warm, fluffy towels every day.  Heated towel rails?  Or do they just warm towels as opposed to drying them?  (And no, I don’t have a dryer in our laundry unfortunately).

My second issue is water ending up all over our floor tiles.  I don’t notice it so much after I’ve had a shower - I tend to just leave a few little wet foot prints here and there.  However, after Paul steps out of the shower, it’s like all the water he’s used to have a shower follows him out.  Our drainage doesn’t seem to be the best in our ensuite and so there are literally puddles of water on our floor.  This leads to another annoyance for me… a soggy, wet bathmat!  All I want is something nice and dry underfoot.  Am I buying the wrong type of bathmat?  Do I need to change it daily as I’m finding I am in this colder weather?  I’m wondering if our shower screen which sits directly on the floor tiles as opposed to our old one which used to sit on a raised tiled surround is contributing to this problem – I don’t seem to remember it bothering me so much before…

So tell me, do these same issues bother you?  Have you found a solution for them?  Or is it just me?...

Image above from House and Home July 2008 issue - Photographer: Donna Griffiths / Designer: Gordon Ridgely Architects

Things To Make Housework Easier (Which I Often Forget To Do)

Cute enamelware bucket above available from Donkee House on Etsy



I’ve been thinking a lot of about housework today. You see, for the past few months, since our trying period with Sophie, once a week, I’ve had someone come and do a bit of housework. Paul suggested it just before Sophie ended up in hospital, when I was exhausted and frazzled.  I was ever so grateful to him for being so understanding. Don’t get me wrong though, with little ones in the house, I am forever tidying up and cleaning each and every day, but the one and a half hour a week of help meant that I knew my floors were vacuumed and mopped, my bathrooms were clean and a spot of dusting had been done. However with things getting easier with Sophie now, such an expense has become money we could be saving and so as of next week, it’s back to me cleaning again. I’m still nutting out how and when I will do so but I’ll save that for another post.

For now, I’m focusing on the small things I can do each day to make things appear tidier. Things that if I hopefully make a part of my daily routine, will actually get done… if only I could remember the following, keeping our house presentable would be so much more manageable…


• Wipe down Grace’s little table immediately after she’s eaten. The longer something like Weetbix sits there, the harder it is to remove and the more muscle is required.

• Fold the washing as soon as I bring it in off the line. I do this quite a bit, but on the occasion I bring it in basket after basket and dump it on the lounge, it makes it all the more difficult to sort through later and leads to unnecessary ironing.

• Make the bed as soon as I jump out of the shower and get dressed each morning. Often by this time Grace is up and desperate for breakfast which means I usually have to find a moment later in the day to sneak off and make it.

• Make it a weekly task to sort through the ‘clutter basket’ that sits on the end of our bench. I’ve been letting it pile up too much lately which makes it harder to file and leads to bills being misplaced.


Which task do you need to focus on doing to make staying on top of housework that little bit easier?

Ten Minute Tidy Up

What do you do when someone unexpectedly phones and says they’re in the area and asks would it be alright for them to pop in? In my case, I usually run around like mad trying to do a little tidy up to make the house look a bit more presentable. It is for this reason I aim to have certain parts of my home in an 'acceptable state' with dishes hidden away in the dishwasher, the toilet and bathroom fresh and clean and the floor swept.

Unfortunately this week when my aunty and cousin paid an impromptu visit, I hadn’t yet tackled the housecleaning and these ‘essentials’ weren’t done. I could have sunk through the floorboards when my cousin asked to use the bathroom. If only it had been as clean and tidy as the one above. Sadly, I don’t think my guests noticed that I’d spent a whole day the previous week (in between keeping a toddler busy and attempting toilet training) cleaning out our fridge, or that they would have known the pantry and linen cupboard were looking immaculate after I'd finally made a start on my spring cleaning.

In Shannon Lush’s book Speed Cleaning, her suggestion for a quick ten minute clean includes a quick tidy up (she recommends hiding items in a spare room), stacking dishes neatly in the sink or in the dishwasher, putting papers in a neat pile, throwing a tablecloth on the table, wiping door frames with a lavender oil impregnated cloth (to give a fresh smell), scrubbing the toilet and sweeping outside the front door.

What would be on your ‘last minute’ list?

Image above from Sang An Photography