TOH 20 day challenge – Week 2

(You can find my recap of week 1 here)

I am now half way through The Organised' Housewife’s 20 day cleaning / organising challenge – and I am pleased to report that I am still on track.

I actually didn’t think I had done too much this week, until I took a look back through my photos and realised that I had actually achieved more than I thought.

Be prepared for photo overload!

Day 6 – Bathrooms

When I received the task email and saw that it was all about the bathrooms, I literally groaned out loud. For while I don’t mind cleaning, vacuuming or dusting, cleaning bathrooms is the one task I loathe. Cleaning the shower in particular.

Which only goes to prove that both our bathrooms needed a good clean.

So the shower screens were scrubbed, mirrors were cleaned and the vanities were given a good wipe over.

Ensuite…

(even with all those cleaning products, I swear the glass screen still looks terrible).

And main bathroom.

I also gave my bathroom drawers a quick tidy.

Did I enjoy it? No. But hey, at least its now done.

Day 7 – Fridge and cookbooks

Day 7 saw me cleaning our fridge, which as you will see from the ‘before’ photo below, is looking a little empty (it was the day before our weekly produce delivery).

One thing I am not short on, however, is condiments! Many of which I was horrified to discover had past their use by dates – so in the bin they went. I pulled everything out, gave all the surfaces and shelves a good clean, then put everything (that was still in date) back in.

Before…

After…

Oh and did I mention the condiments (and one’s obligatory chocolate and cheese drawers….???)

      

(before v after)

Also included in the day’s tasks was a clean up of cookbooks. I think it will come as no surprise when I tell you that I have a lot of cookbooks. A portion of which are located in the shelves built into the end of our kitchen bench.

Over time this handy little shelf had also become a bit of a dumping ground for various items, resulting in a shelf that looked like this….

Again, after pulling everything out and giving the shelves a good clean, I culled all the junk and now have a nice cookbook shelf that looks like this…

Much better!

Day 8 –  Kid’s room / spare room

Today’s cleaning task related to a spare room or a kids play room – whichever you might have. We don’t have a play room, and our guest bedroom is pretty well organised, so I decided to tackle Charlotte’s nursery.

With the arrival of Charlotte, along with lots of generous gifts and toy donations, sadly the wardrobe, and the room in general, had gotten rather messy and in need of a good tidy up.

Before…

After..

I actually had a little bit of a sad moment when packing up all the clothes C has grown out of already.

But they were taking up valuable drawer space, so into marked boxes they went..

To be brought out again if we are blessed to have more children.

A lovely ordered space once again (and all ready for C to move in here for her sleeps very soon).

(ps. my daughter seems to be amassing quite the soft toy army!)

Day 9 – Fans / Junk Drawer / Calendar 

Today was a little bit of everything, as we cleaned our bedroom ceiling fan, de-cluttered the ‘junk drawer’ and organised our calendar.

Like most people I suspect, our bottom drawer in the kitchen tends to be a little haven for all manner of things.

Before…

(manuals, label maker, hooks, string, a stud finder, safety pins, candles….you know…the usual).

But with the help of some spare Tupperware containers, I soon had a drawer that was looking far more respectable.

After…

At least we can now see what we have in there.

As for organising our calendar – mine is already my ‘bible’, so there was no need for anything else to be done. I did, however, love TOH’s birthday calendar printable – which I downloaded and added the birthdays of our nearest and dearest.

I figure it will be a handy tool when adding birthday’s to next year’s calendar.

Day 10 - Kitchen

The final day of this second week saw me back in my favourite room of our house – the kitchen!

But it also saw me completing another not so favourite job – cleaning the oven. Our oven gets used a lot, so a good clean was well overdue (particularly owing to a couple sweet potato roasting spillage incidents).

So although it was hard work, and a lot of elbow grease was used, I was strangely happy to be crossing this task off my to do list.

From the ghastly ‘before’..

(I am mortified!)

To the sparkly ‘after’…

I used the Organised Housewife’s method for cleaning the racks by soaking them in napisan in the bathtub.

Then with a lot of elbow grease and steel wool, I managed to get most of the grime off.

Still not perfect – but much better than they were to start with.  On reflection, I should have let them soak overnight – which may have made cleaning them a little easier. Next time perhaps!

The second part of today’s tasks was to organise and de-clutter the kitchen cupboards/ drawers.

Luckily the kitchen is one area that I am pretty organised in – so apart from a general tidy up, there wasn’t too much work that needed to be done.

When we designed our kitchen, we opted for deep drawers that have been perfect for storing pots, pans and other kitchen items.

I really do prefer drawers like these to cupboards as it allows you to see just what’s in them – and you can reach items with ease.

(my baking drawer)

We also have some shallower drawers for knives, utensils etc…

And of course, my favourite drawers….

The spice drawer…

And our coffee / tea drawer!

We do, however, still have a few overhead cupboards, which contain our glassware and ceramics etc…

As well as a low cupboard for the plates, bowls and other cooking ceramics we use daily.

So there you have it! Week 2 of this challenge is done – and you have now had a little more of a peek into casa BBB – dirty oven and all.

Time for me to go try out my sparkly clean oven with a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Stay tuned for Week 3!