On Wednesday, during my week off, after two weeks of procrastinating, (and also recovering from burnout at work) I finally started to do some of the jobs that desperately needed doing around the house. I started work in the kitchen. It's the room I spend most of my time in and it seriously needed a good clean and declutter.
I started at about 2pm and continued until probably 8pm, interrupted only by cooking supper. I didn't get around to doing everything. Vacuuming and mopping the floor, for example, had to wait until the following morning, as it would have been too noisy at 8pm, as our neighbours have small children, who would have been in bed by this time. I also didn't manage to clean the oven or the dishwasher, but these jobs were stand alone and could be done at any time.
On Thursday, I got up and got straight on with cleaning the kitchen floor. It felt very satisfying to get the cleaning of this room completed, as it is probably the one that takes the longest. Cleaning all the cupboard doors inside and out and deep cleaning surfaces and window sills etc., always takes quite a long time. I did deep clean the cupboards under the sink, some of the other cupboards and most of the drawers, where crumbs and clutter gather, but to be honest, there wasn't much to get rid of this time around.
After finishing the kitchen floor, I then cleaned the downstairs toilet, vestibule and stairs up to the ground floor, before taking a break for lunch. I did find a few pairs of shoes in the vestibule that I could let go of. Two pairs were worn out and three other pairs I no longer wanted to keep. So this was progress.
Whilst having lunch, for inspiration and continued motivation, I watched a couple of cleaning videos by Aurikatariina on YouTube, which spurred me on to do more cleaning. She does some very dirty cleaning jobs in her videos, but is such a happy cleaner and is super enthusiastic about it.
After lunch, I proceeded to clean the two reception rooms. It only took a couple of hours, as I'd cleaned just before Christmas when I put the tree up, so it wasn't super dirty, but there was quite a bit of furniture to move and clean underneath. I finished for the afternoon by cleaning the hallway, which completed the whole of the lower part of the house. By this time it was time to take the dog out, so I got out for a break and some fresh air. Here's a couple of photos of these rooms once cleaned:
Later in the evening after supper, I watched a few more cleaning videos, whilst simultaneously descaling the kettle and cleaning the oven. I had just enough time before The Apprentice came on at 9pm, to get both of these jobs done.
On Friday, I did a couple of things in the morning, such as putting away the laundry, doing another wash and I set the dishwasher on a cleaning cycle with some citric acid in there. I put the extractor fan filters in there too, as they were very oily and dirty, the last little job I needed to do in the kitchen.
I took a break from cleaning for the rest of the day, as I had a few errands to do, but returned to doing a bit more on Saturday afternoon. On this occasion, I vacuumed and mopped the stairs up to the top landing, then cleaned our bedroom which was especially dirty. I didn't do a spring clean, as in taking everything off the shelves and cleaning them, I just cleaned the bits of the shelves that were visible. The reason for this is that we are awaiting the arrival of new sash windows next week, which are going to be fitted in this room, so there is no point thoroughly cleaning, as it will need doing again, once the new windows have been fitted.
I did wipe down all surfaces, vacuum and mop the floor, change the bedding and then remove any breakables from the room, to prevent any breakages during the fitting of the windows. It felt good to get this room done and then I could hang out some washing to dry.
By way of a treat, after all my cleaning this week, we headed to the pub on Saturday night for supper.
Fancy a visit, mine needs doing.
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