"Spring" Cleaning

Okay... so... I've never actually done any sort of whole house or "spring" cleaning before. That's probably because for a long time the running joke among our friends was to never write our address in INK in an address book! Now that we are, eh hem, settling into a house with no plans to leave (for now!), I felt like maybe it was time to start with a whole house cleaning plan. We have been living in our house for a year now, although it feels like it's been much shorter than that, and the dirt and grime was starting to show. So, although I missed the boat on a true SPRING cleaning, I know my house benefited from the process that took place over the past week.

However... it was a pretty major effort to tackle so much cleaning in a week's worth of time. There were also several areas of the house that I was cleaning and thinking I'm SURE this could use cleaning MORE than once a year! So, now that I've tackled all of this, I think I'm going to re-vamp my list and break it down monthly so that some tasks are in the rotation once per year and others more frequently. The thing that I liked about the check list was that it made me much more methodical in my cleaning. Here is everything that I tackled:

Whole House
 wipe down all baseboards and molding
 vacuum all curtains and blinds
 clean inside & out of all windows
 vacuum all rugs – including under furniture
 clear all cobwebs
 dust all light fixtures and ceiling fans
 change smoke detector batteries
 dust & clean glass on all wall photos
 steam clean all carpets
 steam mop all hardwood and linoleum floors
 wipe down and disinfect all electronic items
 change HVAC filters

Kitchen
 wipe down cabinets
 clean fridge coils
 clean out and wipe down inside of fridge
 clean drawer organizers
 clean oven
 wipe down walls
 wipe chairs
 clean & polish table
 clean trash can
 clean inside of dishwasher
 wipe down exterior doors
 clean inside & out of microwave
 clean out and wipe down inside of lazy susan cabinet
 wipe down spice rack
 dust upper cabinet tops
 organize pantry
 clean out under sink cabinet
 wipe down counter tops, sink & stove top
 clean dish rack & pan
 new dish sponge

Dining Room
 clean & polish table
 wipe down all chairs
 dust inside and out of china cabinets

Bathrooms
 clean toilets, mirrors, counter tops, tubs and showers
 organize linen closets and cabinets
 wash bath mats & towels
 empty trash
 stock trash bags in cans

Living room
 wash all furniture covers
 dust built-ins
 organize cabinets
 clean out dresser drawers
 clean & polish coffee table & end table

Bedrooms
 wash bed linens
 vacuum & flip mattresses
 wipe down & polish headboards and dressers
 organize closets
 wash dog bed cover

Nursery
 wipe down crib
 clean leather on rocking chair
 clean & polish stand & Dresser
 move any out of season or too small clothes to storage
 wash bedding
 wipe down crib mattress

Play room
 dust tv
 clean & organize TV stand
 clean leather sofa
 disinfect all toys
 move un-used toys to storage
 wipe down kids table & chairs
 wipe down play mats

Laundry room
 wipe down washer & dryer
 organize laundry shelves
 empty, clean & refill litter box
 wipe down dog food container

Whew! And now I'm tired of cleaning!! To give my husband props, he did get up on the ladder to change the HVAC filters, smoke detector batteries and clear the cobwebs. The biggest thing that he did to help, was to take over parenting duties on Sunday afternoon while I got a big chunk of things finished. I'm glad this is done, but now know that I want to break this up into smaller chunks throughout the year. It was too much to tackle in a week and still try to take care of normal life stuff!

Rocking Horse Re-do

Last month I found this very sad looking hand made rocking horse at Goodwill. It was just begging me with those creepy looking little eyes to take it home and spruce it up! Unfortunately I had already cut all of the weird, frayed, rope/yarn that was tied on for a mane before I took this "before" picture.... otherwise, you could have seen it in all it's glory!

I decided that this would make a cute 2nd birthday present for Andy. His birthday is just two months away! So, this afternoon I gave this little guy a good coat of semi-gloss spray paint in brown. After it dried, I took some craft paint and gave it some eyes and a harness and then stenciled an 'A' on the bottom of each side (for Andy, of course!)

Next I cut and tied several pieces of yarn through the little holes to give it a mane. This part was rather tedious, but I think it turned out cute. The best part was giving it a little hair cut at the end to even up the yarn! I'm not sure why this part was so fun, but I really enjoyed giving it a hair cut! ha ha

The hardest part was painting the eyes and harness and stars, etc. the same on both sides of the horse... but it all turned out great! Here is the finished product...



LOVE those Goodwill finds!

How To Easily Stuff A Dog Bed

We bought this dog bed at a pet store a few years ago. It was cheap and it served it's purpose, but about a year ago, the inside stuffing all came apart and I had to throw it away. I've held onto the outer cover of the bed since then with the intention of re-using it.

In the past, my husband and I have actually sewn dog beds for our dogs and instead of using stuffing to fill them, we just used some old pillows! This worked great! The pillows seem to hold up better than the stuffing. This time, I didn't have any old or unused pillows lying around, so I went to Walmart and bought two pillows for $2.50 a piece.






I stuffed the pillows inside the liner and now we have a perfectly usable dog bed again! It's not quite as full as it was when we bought it, but I suppose it could be if I had splurged on the bigger pillows...






...but Kinley doesn't mind... it serves its purpose just the same!



I think knows it's an actual pillow in there by the way she is sleeping! Ha ha! Although yesterday I seriously found her curled up in Andy's car seat on the floor in the entry way!!!! We needed to take the seat out of one of the cars, and I came home and found her sitting/laying in it asleep! She's a sweet, but funny little dog :-)

Creating an Art Box

So, Andy has been very into coloring lately... which I love! Do you want to know the other thing I love?... Washable crayons! Yup! They are the BEST! I don't have to panic when he runs right off the paper and onto the kitchen table with his drawing. Although, I must say, he does try to stay on the paper, and he knows his is only allowed to color on paper. He loves to ask us to draw things for him. His usual request is a turtle, but it can run the gamut from a sun, moon and stars, to penguins or fish, or even a worm. One time he asked for a wolf... I think I redirected him back to a turtle!

Anyway, his little crayons are migrating all over the place. Sometimes they are hard to keep up with, plus, he usually colors at the kitchen table and I'm always running into the office to get more printer paper for him to draw on, SOOOO...today I made him an art box to contain everything!

I got this great plastic suitcase-like box for $5 at the craft store... slapped some letter stickers on it... and viola! I also got him a smaller plastic case to keep all of his crayons in. So, now we have a package of construction paper, his crayons, some washable markers and his container of sidewalk chalk all stored in one easy carrying case!

Oh, ya, and I also finally took the gazillion plastic grocery bags back to the store today to recycle them! They were completely filling up the cabinet under my kitchen sink. I've been doing pretty well lately remembering to use my cloth grocery bags, but I still had quite a few plastic ones from a while ago, and from more recent times when I forgot to bring my cloth ones in. I do like having a few around to use in bathroom trash cans, but the amount we had was just out of control. I feel much better having recycled them!

Bed Stand Transformation

Today I refinished an old end table/cabinet from my grandparents. I'm re-purposing it as a bed stand in our master bedroom. It is a VERY solid cabinet, and still in fantastic shape, but just not the style I am trying to create in our bedroom. Since we are pretty short on furniture and funds, I'm trying to do as much re-purposing as possible! I'm currently on the hunt for a similar looking cabinet that I can refinish to match and put on the other side of the bed.

Here is what it looked like before...

I had already taken one of the drawer pulls off in this picture to take with me to Home Depot... just to make sure I got the same size replacement pulls. I was happy with the dark finish that was already on the cabinet because I wanted some of it to show through once I distressed it. I used some sand paper to scuff up the finish a bit so that the paint would adhere, and then I gave it two good coats of Behr Paint & Primer in one (LOVE that stuff!) in Beach White semi-gloss. After it dried, I used some 220 grit sand paper to hand distress it along the edges and then I put on some new hardware.

I'm TOTALLY in love with the finished product!

This is exactly what I pictured for the cottage and coastal feel I'm trying to achieve in our bedroom. Our head board and foot board are metal in an oil rubbed bronze finish, so this new hardware will coordinate perfectly! It always amazes me how you can totally change the look of a piece of furniture with just some paint and some sandpaper!

I'm linking up to...

Almost Giving Blood

So, one of the things on my list for June was to donate blood. About two weeks ago I started thinking hmmmm... do I just go to a Red Cross center? Do I find a blood drive? How do I find out where blood drives are being held? ... and then, an e-mail magically (not really) appeared in my inbox from Team In Training letting me know about a blood drive in my area that was being held yesterday. Perfect! So, I signed up for an appointment at 6:30 p.m. That would give Matt enough time to get home from work and stay with Andy while I went. Matt and I also decided to do a "date night in." So, I planned to pick up some take out on my way home and we would have a little date night right here (more on that later). I figured I'd be home no later than 8:00. I even made an effort to dress presentable and I brought my camera along to have the nurse take my picture for the blog! Well...

The Red Cross must just take appointments so that they can have some idea of how many people they will have at different times of the day, because when I got there, they were also accepting walk-ins, which I think is awesome, but just because you had an appointment didn't mean that you went ahead of walk-ins. So, I waited for about 40 minutes, but I didn't mind. It really was great that they had so many people to donate blood.

Then, I got called back and sat in a little cubicle with a nurse. She asked me a bunch of questions. She took my temperature, checked my blood pressure and pricked my finger to check my iron levels and make sure I was not anemic (I was not). I also watched a guy pass out (kinda scary!) and then wake up (sigh of relief). Then she left me to answer 50 questions on the computer. They were mostly questions about risky behavior and if I had lived in certain countries during certain dates and if I'd ever had any diseases. One of the questions was Are you pregnant or have you been pregnant in the past 6 weeks? So, I answered No. Because to my knowledge I'm not pregnant, and I know for sure I haven't been pregnant in the past 6 weeks! BUT... truth be told... this was the first month we started trying for baby #2. Since my brother is getting married in September and I'm in the wedding, I'm not exactly wanting to be pregnant by then, but given what it took to get pregnant with Andy, my doctor said to try for 3 months and if nothing, uh, happens, then try a round of Clomid. SOOOO.... I am of course assuming nothing will happen, so we can get 4 rounds of trying in before the wedding and then do whatever we have to do after that.

But, of course, there is always that chance... so I asked the nurse What are the repercussions to giving blood if you are pregnant? She asked me if there was even a chance I was pregnant and I told her, well, I guess there could be a chance, but it would be nothing short of a miracle if after trying to conceive for two years and needing a round of fertility drugs we just got PREGNANT on the first try! (I mean, I can't even fathom that!!). So, she called over the head nurse and they said Absolutely not! She said that since your body starts increasing it's blood volume to support the baby, the last thing you want to do is take blood away. I pointed out that I hadn't even missed my period yet... I was still a few days away... and she told me to get my period and then come back... So...

I'm moving Donate Blood to the July list (unless of course I know ahead of time that I won't be eligible to give blood (wink wink nod nod) I guess time will tell) and replacing it with returning an un-used work shirt to my old place of employment.

So, this post is already super long, but I just wanted to say that I loved having "date night in!" It was really nice! Matt and I were able to talk about things we probably wouldn't have talked about in a restaurant. We didn't pay for drinks or pay tip, so it was cheaper. We didn't have to worry about who would watch Andy... mostly, it was just nice to set aside time for ourselves instead of being busy working on different things around the house at night, or one of us on the computer and the other watching TV, etc. After dinner we watched a movie. It was nice and relaxing and something I want to start incorporating into every week! I highly recommend it!

Blog Withdrawal!

Okay, so I'm seriously going through withdrawal from not blogging! I can't believe I haven't posted anything in almost A WEEK! Geesh!!! So, since the last time that I posted, I turned another year older and I went out of town for four days. I had very limited access to the internet while I was in North Carolina and I feel like all I've done since I got back has been GO GO GO! I'm starting to realize that our summer has filled up with plans faster than I ever imagined! I'm afraid it's going to go by too fast! I can already tell that I am going to have to put in some extra effort to keep up with my resolutions this summer.

But... just because I've been out of town doesn't mean I've been slacking (too much!) on my list. I have been able to cross a few things off... now I just have to catch up on posts! Anyway, last week, I spent two nights doing nothing but watching the last 5 episodes of Grey's Anatomy online. My husband and I decided in March to cancel our cable. We were hardly watching TV and didn't feel like we were getting our money's worth out of it every month. We also haven't gotten any rabbit ears for our TV either. At the time I thought I would just keep watching the shows I had been watching on TV... online. It was funny how I thought I'd miss those shows, and then I guess never did because I hadn't watched anything online until last week.

I felt like I had to put it on my list to watch Grey's Anatomy because every time all my girlfriends would start talking about the season finale I would have to shoosh them! I knew if it didn't make it on my list, I would keep putting it off until it wasn't available online anymore. So, now I've watched all the episodes I had missed... and HOLY COW! Was NOT expecting all of that in the season finale! I think I'll probably keep up with the shows online next season.

I'm also crossing a small thing off my list tonight as well. I finally put a nail file, a pair of tweezers and some nail clippers in my purse. Those are the three items I find myself wishing I had in my purse over and over and over again and I'm always so annoyed with myself that I never keep a set in there! So, now they are in my purse in their own little pouch so that I can always find them with ease.

There are some other things on my list that are in progress. Currently it is "spring" cleaning my house. I'll post about this when I'm completely done and can cross it off. Today/tonight I tackled everything on my kitchen list (I broke everything down by "whole house" items and then by room). It's 12:42 a.m. and I'm still up because I have the oven on "self cleaning" mode and it still has thirty minutes left.... shoot me now! I have all the downstairs windows open, the range hood fan on and the ceiling fan on and I still feel a little loopy from the fumes! Suffice it to say I have never, ever cleaned an oven (by hand or otherwise) in my life, so I wasn't really sure what this would entail!

Okay, but just so that I can feel a sense of accomplishment before I collapse in my bed in twenty nine minutes, here is the list of things I did in the kitchen (by far the most involved of all the rooms!)

• Wipe down cabinets
• Clean fridge coils & vacuum behind fridge
• Clean out and wipe down the inside of the fridge
• Clean drawer organizers and silverware holder
• Wipe down walls
• Wipe down chairs
• Clean & polish table
• Clean trash can
• Clean inside of dishwasher
• Wipe down inside of exterior doors
• Clean inside & out of microwave
• Clean out & wipe down inside of lazy susan cabinet
• Wipe down spice rack
• Dust upper cabinet tops
• Organize pantry
• Clean under sink
• Wipe down counter tops, sink & stove top
• Clean dish rack & pan
• Put out new sponge

I've never done a whole house type spring cleaning before. I have thoughts to share on this, but not tonight. It's time for me to go pass out now.