October Cleaning Challenge- Day Eight

Day Eight- Windows (Outside)

Have I mentioned I strongly dislike windows! Outside ones at least! I can barely reach the top of our outside windows so it makes it extremely difficult to clean them. I love that they let such pretty light into my house but I hate cleaning them! Really thinking self cleaning windows would be super nice! 

Someone get on that! Ha Ha!

I posted my before pictures yesterday and cleaned the insides of my windows. Here are the two outsides of the same windows and they are all clean now! 

Did you join in this week on the October Cleaning Challenge and blog about it?

If so leave a comment with your blog post or just share that you joined in!

October Cleaning Challenge- Day Seven

Day Seven- Windows (Inside)

First things first when it comes to cleaning windows I have to say it is probably the most boring part of cleaning the house that I do. So I always start it off with some good music! 

I am sharing the before pictures of two of my windows that I cleaned on the inside today. Tomorrow will be my afters as we do the outside part. 

 

I clean my windows with glass cleaner that contains vinegar and a terry cloth rag. Some people have found that paper towels work well or even news paper. 

What do you use to wash your windows?

Come back tomorrow for the After pictures as we clean the outside windows!

Did you join in this weekend on the October Cleaning Challenge and blog about it?

If so leave a comment with your blog post or just share that you joined in!

October Cleaning Challenge- Weekend Recap

Day Four- Cabinets

Day Five- Mirrors

Day Six- Window Sill

Day Four was to cleaning cabinets. I just chose one to share and that is our main kitchen cabinet. This cabinet holds our plates, bowls, and cups. It has also turned into our "junk drawer". We don't have enough drawers to actually have a junk drawer so this cabinet always seems to be the place things get shoved. Not any longer!

My first step was to pull everything out of the cabinet. Then I wiped the shelves down. It seemed like so much stuff when it was all sitting on the counter than when looking into the cabinet. 

 

Then I decided function was important with where I put things back. The items on the top shelf aren't used very often and I wanted my kids to be able to reach their cups easier so the switch was made. Everything seems better organized now. Next step is new dishes in the coming month (just have to find the ones I want as red is being dismissed from my kitchen and grays and turquoise are coming in!). 

Day Five was cleaning mirrors. We have one bathroom mirror so this wasn't hard to chose what to share with y'all!  By the looks of this mirror my kids must have competition on who can either spit the hardest in the sink or who can spit the highest on the mirror because from top to bottom is spit marks from toothpaste. Boys! It was definitely time to clean this mirror.

I wiped it down with some dollar store glass cleaner that has vinegar in it and it shines now! No more looking around the spit marks! Let's see how long this lasts. 

Today is Day Six and it is window sills. I just shared one as pretty much they all looked the same. Dusty and dirty from having the windows open and this lovely Oklahoma winds that seem to be filled with dirt! I sprayed with cleaner and let it soaked.

 

Then I just wiped it up and it was clean as can be! This is definitely something I need to add to my weekly chores as they were horrible!

 

Did you join in this weekend on the October Cleaning Challenge and blog about it?

If so leave a comment with your blog post or just share that you joined in!

October Cleaning Challenge- Day Three

 

Day Three- Fridge

 

Today the challenge is to clean our fridge! This was not a hard challenge at all because it is the day before grocery shopping here and well our fridge was pretty bare. 

 

This is our fridge. Can't get a frontal view of the whole thing as our kitchen is so small.

The inside of our fridge right now is drinks, leftovers, condiments, croutons, butter, eggs, and lunch meats. Everything just seems to get thrown in there without a spot that it goes. So it was pretty much a mess.

 

The freezer was a mess as we don't use it very much (other than for fast cook food items that are easy to make or frozen fruit for smoothies) since we have a deep freezer in the garage. 

 I am much happier now that everything is in a specific spot and much neater looking. I might look in the fridge a lot more just to see how neat it looks. While I was moving things around I wiped the shelves down with a Clorox wipe.

  I went ahead and tackled our indoor freezer (not even going to try the deep freezer right now, maybe another day. So everything is a bit neater in there, too! 

I hope you joined in on this really easy challenge today of cleaning your fridge!

 

Did you join in on the October Cleaning Challenge and blog about it?

If so leave a comment with your blog post or just share that you joined in!

October Cleaning Challenge- Day Two

 

 Day Two- Microwave

 This is my microwave area. We just got this microwave about a month ago. This is my first time cleaning it since we got it, as we had a small splatter of spaghetti sauce over this past weekend in it.

I didn't really realize how dirty it was till I looked at the pictures. Those finger prints on the door I wasn't able to see until I took the picture and the flash picked them up.

Since this is such a small area of cleaning today I am sharing my tips to get a clean microwave in just minutes without scrubbing! 

What you need:

Bowl

1 1/2 cups of water

1/2 cups of vinegar

Wet rag (not pictured)

Once water and vinegar are in the bowl place in the microwave for 5 minutes.

During this time I wiped the outside of my microwave down since there were crumbs from our toaster and dust on top. 

Then time was up. I grabbed my wet rag and wiped all surfaces down. You should not have to scrub at all, it should wipe off easily. 

Everything is all clean and no more spaghetti sauce splatters! It looks brand new inside!

The outside is all clean, also! No more crumbs or finger prints!

 

Did you join in on the October Cleaning Challenge and blog about it?

If so leave a comment with your blog post or just share that you joined in!

October Cleaning Challenge- Day One

 Day One- Front Entry

Today starts our October Cleaning Challenge! 

My front entry way is very small and includes a coat closet. I went ahead and cleaned it as well since it is considered part of our entry way.  I don't use the coat closet very much as I keep most of my shoes in our bedroom but it mainly is used for purses, backpacks, coats, and shoes. My kids are the main users of this closet. Right now it also stores our 2014 Halloween costumes. 

It was very much in need of cleaning as I have neglected it for awhile. My kids have everything just thrown in there. Here is what it looked like before I touched it.

My first step was to pull everything out that was on the floor. I left everything that was hanging as it was where it was supposed to be at this time. That shoe bucket is embarrassing!

 After that I swept and steam mopped the floors.

I love my steam mop except for when it comes to small places like this closet. I then resorted to scrubbing with the Clorox wipes to get around the edges and in the corners. Looks much better!

 

Once I was done with that and was wishing I could stop because I knew that the next part was shoe sorting. I kept on going with it and tackled this mound of shoes, pool floats (who knows why they were in there), and kids jackets that never get hung up.

 

The bucket of shoes looked much better so I placed it back in the closet. Hung up my purses which some how managed to get in the bucket of shoes. Then hung up the jackets that were needing to be hung. 

The closet now looks much better as the shoes are nice and neat in the bucket. I moved our boots to the top shelf. Everything looks so clean and organized! I love it!

 And of course the final picture of the front door and closet closed, which also looks amazing!

I am so happy with what I did on the first day of this challenge!

Did you join in on the October Cleaning Challenge and blog about it?

If so leave a comment with your blog post or just share that you joined in!