A Domestic Goddess (in the making).: Home care and cleaning

I finally got around to both creating and starting a cleaning schedule. I have always kept a tidy house with things that live in particular places and a weekly vacuum, regular mop and generally clear kitchen benches when I go to bed but this has been a revelation so here is how it is going.

A Panorama of my beautifully clean kitchen

Firstly creating the schedule, using At Home with Madame Chic (treat yourself to either or both of Jennifer's books they are fabulous) and a quick Google search of Cleaning Schedule pictures and I was able to workout what I needed to do and break it down over the course of a week. Here is the finished product:

Hand drawn as the printer was out of ink

You will note Laundry appears a lot this is because I use cloth nappies so I wash everyday. This week as it is massive I am doing everything but generally hubby does bathrooms and Vacuums and I do mopping and everywhere else :)

Super powered elbow.

So we are still 2 days from the the end of the week but here is what I have found so far.

Everything has taken me longer than anticipated. I spent all of yesterday cleaning the kitchen starting with the oven. (It is pyrolitic so it cleaned itself, I just had to clean 8mths of buildup off the glass, plus cleaning all the racks, I got distracted last time I attempted this) thankfully darling hubby did come in with super powered elbows and save me at least 2 more hours of scrubbing.

I happily get carried away. I know that the task is clean the kitchen so while on a more standard day this's oils be a wipe of cabinet fronts and benches plus I good clean of stove and sink this time being the first I took everything out of the pantry, readjusted shelving (this took 30 minutes as my pantry was not completed well by the cabinet maker, the only hiccup in our build, but we got there again hubby came in handy) and rearranged all my containers and food stuffs. So by the time I went to bed, at midnight, everything was sparkling and fit for the queen (I had to vacuum/mop kitchen floors this morning as we have ducted vacuuming so can't use it after 9pm) it was a highly satisfactory day.

I know when a job is going to be done so it is easier to leave other tasks and focus on the task at hand. Such as while cleaning the kitchen I got rags and noticed the laundry needed a clean but knew that was tomorrow's task so was able to leave it. I got it cleaned and re-organised in an hour and a half, it is much smaller than the kitchen, in fact it lives in a large cupboard, one of my favourite features . The box on the bench is all my homemade Christmas gifts packed and ready to go.

Now you see it

Now you don't

My house has never been cleaner everything looks shiny and new especially my oven (can you tell how thrilled I am) as we moved in when Boo was around 7months old having lived underneath while the build was happening. We were so keen to move in that we didn't give it a final clean after the builders finished just cleaned as we went meaning there have been a few dusty residues I have discovered.

I love reorganising I already knew I loved this but there is a whole new joy in facing individual spaces at a time, such as seeing a way I could improve my pantry while I was cleaning. Which is awesome.

Lastly some pics of the pristine kitchen. Unfortunately I didn't do before pictures as I hadn't realised how into it I would get. So you will just have to trust me when I say the oven particularly was filthy :D

On beautifully clean oven, yay for pyrolitic cleaning and the wikihow on cleaning oven glass.

Below is my pantry/appliance cupboard closed and open, inside I have all my cup & spoon measures up and available with an awesome conversion chart, as well as attachments for my mixer. this was one feature that i had been dying to put up so was in a month after we moved in. The top shelf is now higher meaning i can stack containers in the middle shelf, it was worth moving.