Did you see my blog post about starting the 14 Days To A Tidy Home Challenge last week? I thought I’d share a quick update with you to let you know how I got on and perhaps inspire you to take the challenge and get a jump start on your spring cleaning too…
Here’s the 14 Days to a Tidy Home Challenge day-by-day to get you started:
Day 1: Bins and recycling: sort through all the bins in your house and get your recycling separated.
Day 2: Wipe down your kitchen units and steam the cooker tops.
Day 3: Empty and clean out the fridge freezer and the kitchen cupboards.
Day 4: Vacuum Day: Focus on the floors, give all the rooms in your house a good vacuum.
Day 5: Vacuum Day: Move the furniture and hoover those hard to reach areas of your home.
Day 6: Clean the windows – inside and out!
Day 7: Wash the curtains and wipe down the blinds.
Day 8: Take everything off the sideboards and shelves, and get dusting!
Day 9: Get your bedding, blankets and cushions washed – after all everyone loves fresh bedding!
Day 10: Wardrobes: Clear out any old clothing, reorganise and wipe down your wardrobes.
Day 11: Remove wrinkles from clothing, curtains and upholstery.
Day 12: Wash out your shower, shower screen and/or bath.
Day 13: Let’s mop: antibacterial your floors and wipe down the tiles.
Day 14: Finally take a trip to the tip: Declutter your home from unwanted clothes, items or food and take it to the tip, food bank or local charity shop.
After tackling the first week, my house was already looking better and feeling much fresher. I steam-cleaned the hob (argh the grease, ick!), washed the windows (for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long) and emptied out my cupboards. I suddenly had more space in the kitchen and the sunlight came blazing in through the windows. Yes, there were a couple of days of sunshine last week, honest!
And you won’t believe what a difference my new recycling bin has made! I’m almost excited when I get to open my fitted pull-out cupboard bin and pop something into the recycling. I can pretty much guarantee that I’m recycling more than I ever did before. Now that there’s somewhere specific to put the recycling, I’m more included to wash out tubs and dismantle boxes because I know they won’t be cluttering up the kitchen worktop, they’ll be neatly tucked away inside the my recycling cupboard until it’s time to take it out to the wheelie bin.
Anyway, on with the challenge. On Day 8 I tackled the Ladderax storage unit we have in the living room. It’s been a while since anything was moved off the open shelves, so I wasn’t surprised to find a layer of dust on the surfaces. I cleared off everything and used the handheld vacuum to suck up the worst of the lint before giving each shelf a wipe down. Ahhh so much better. Plus, I gave the plants some much-needed water, oops!
Day 9 was fun because I really do enjoy freshening up cushions, blankets and bedding. I took all the throws and cushion covers off the sofa and popped them into the wash together. It was a sunny day so I thought they could dry outside on the washing line. However, the wind had other ideas! When pegs couldn’t hold the blankets in place, I gave up and brought them indoors to tumble-dry and hand on the airer. At least all the blankets are clean, neatly folded and ready to use or store – depending on how cold the weather gets this week!
I’d already cleared out my wardrobe KonMari-style in January so days 10 and 11 were easy to do; I simply the ironed our shirts and dresses. That said, I did finally put all of the clothing I cleared out into a bag so that it was ready to donate to the charity shop at the end of the challenge. Three full bags of clothing and shoes, woo!
I combined days 12 and 13 into one big bathroom clean up. I filled my handheld steam cleaner and used pretty much all of the attachments to clean the bathroom, the tiles, the mirrors and the flooring. Ahh so fresh and sanitised! I love a clean bathroom as it makes me want to chill out with an at-home spa session, which I’ve got planned for tomorrow evening as my reward for completing the challenge – bliss!
Have you started the VonHaus 14 Days to a Tidy Home Challenge yet? If not, will you give it a go? You can start the challenge on any Monday at any time of year to give you inspiration for tackling a full-home tidy up, but in bitesize chunks. I think that made all the difference to me: if I’d thought about doing all that cleaning at once, I wouldn’t have even started. But because it’s a little cleaning at a time, it didn’t seem like a chore and I actually enjoyed sticking to the routine provided. I recommend you give it a go and do let me know how you get on – good luck!
Some items in this blog post have been gifted to me and the pink links indicate a gifted product, affiliate link or information source. All thoughts and opinions in this post are based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your experience 🙂
