I'm going to properly deep clean my house, slowly.

[slightlysoreboobs]

My house isn't exactly a midden, but it's not good. The middles get cleaned a la flylady, but I have no real routines and you can tell! It's all just a bit grubby unless its dark and there are only lamps or candles to add a gentle glow and hide the mess and muck. I'm a single mum, three kids and I work so I give myself a bit of slack and try not to get too bothered by it as long as I keep the kitchen clean, food in the cupboards and we all have clean clothes. But I've been thinking about Christmas and how I'd love the house to be all cosy and lovely and with that in mind I'm going to do an epic declutter, clean everything and make it gorgeous. The caveat is that it will probably take till Christmas to do it all!

Today so far I have:

put the sofa covers in the wash
defrosted the freezer
done a food shop (not part of Operation Christmas but necessary!)

Once I've finished my cuppa, I'm going to pull out the sofas and clean under there (anyone else find that EVERYTHING ends up there?) and declutter a bookcase. Maybe if I have time I'll address the living room toy box too.

I thought I might focus on one room a week. Anyone care to join me?

PS this really isn't like me, I've never even noticed the door before!

yay baby! Repainting the fireplace really is going above and beyond the call of duty and for you.

I sort of flyladied too - cleaned the kitchen (cupboard doors, the oven, the fridge, inside a few cupboards that looked a bit grubby) whilst I was making the kids tea, loosely based on her "do it now" theory. I ended up boiling hot, flustered and sweaty and grouchy with the children. Still, my kitchen looks shiny!

Excellent apart from the grouchy :) I an getting better at "if it takes less than 5 minutes, do it now" as well - it actually works!

Being lazy today. No other word for it. Haven't done much. Need to get moving now. Been answering emails, on Pinterest and MN. Tut tut.

I did get back to bedding chest and finished it and I have cleaned fridge and done some washing today. I have mountain of ironing so off to do that and then wash up. Kitchen has kept pretty clean and tidy since I did it. Cooking easy meals means I'm not so tired after work and I clean all the kitchen before sitting down or last few bits before bed. Need to look at fly lady again.

Fantastic job reprinting.
I had planned to paint today but think it might be a weekend job. Just one wall. You never know.

I didn't get as much done as I hoped today but the back garden is swept and tidied, DDs fleece blankets are washed and dried, my car is washed and the veg are harvested (French beans, broccoli, courgette and radishes).

I am about to tackle DDs room. And will do the wood burning stove later too.

Today I mopped the kitchen, hallway and bathroom. This does not count as deep cleaning

In my defence I am homocidal with pmt and had a billion tasks to do today.

Never mind slightly tomorrow is another day :) yy to biddy and her tidy garden, I have recently realized the majority of gardening is also just tidying up and cleaning. I have chopped half our hedges down and resolved to try and spend half an hour out there every dry day to try and get it cleared

I'm in!
I'm going to tackle a room at a time along with the usual daily housework.
I have the time now I'm not working.
I'm going to timetable my day (see what happens when you've worked in a school!)
I did my wardrobe yesterday. I had a big bag for the charity shop (which I took straight away, go me!) & half a bag for the clothes recycling.
Tomorrow I am going to deep clean the downstairs loo & start on the utility room.

Right. Deep cleaning the downstairs loo room. I'm going in!

Place marking!
I don't know where to start, I have half painted door frames just left because I ran out of steam.
I think I will sit down later and write a list about each room I want to do including any DIY.
Thanks for this thread.

I managed to get DDs clothes sorted, including the removal of things she's grown out of and putting out a few from the "for growing into" drawer that now fit. She agreed to throw out a pile of old soccer magazines and beanos, and we spent 40 minutes tidying lego as well.

So I didn't actually get to the stove.

But I did get rid of another 4" of papers from the sitting room to the recycling, burned another 2" of confidential papers, and got another 2 bags ready for donation once she was in bed. And tidied the travel books shelf in the sitting room (chaos).

I'm back at work today (I had a day off yesterday to get to various appointments for DD and cleaning was my "rest and relaxation"!!). But I will look at the study tonight - there's a few things to take up from the sitting room for filing that will make quite a visible difference.

Downstairs loo room deep cleaned. It's the smallest room but at least it's a room ticked off!
Am off out now but later I shall start the (f)utility room. AKA The Dumping Ground.
I moved here for more space. I have just as much clutter & mess. Wtf?!

What plans do people ave for tomorrow?
I'm going to deep clean the upstairs bathroom & I promise I will start on the (f)utility room.

Have. I do not drop my H's.

Morning all
Still in the dining room, its windows, frames and blinds today, and big lights if I have time.
Managed to get a lot done yesterday, well, more than usual!
How's everyone doing?

I've cleared out dsd's clothes! Lots of stuff to be passed onto people that's barely worn and she's grown too fast house will be ready to move one day

So where am I going wrong?

Towards the end of the summer holidays I went on this kind of mad cleaning mission too. I decluttered a lot of stuff. Maybe 6 bin bags or so. I bought storage for my bedroom cupboards and did a basic sort of paperwork. Got rid of old stuff and sorted paperwork to keep into separate files etc. I tidied my childrens (teenagers) bedroom. It was a pigsty. it looked lovely after a couple of hours of intensive cleaning. The next day it was looking messy again. I was really upset but not at work so I re tidied it and literally begged for it to stay nice. I repainted some of the livingroom to re-freshen it then ran out of time and energy to do any more. Anyway, it was looking good enough for when I was back at work and a lot of the 'stuff' had been thrown away.

my children get home before me after school. I walk through the door around 6pm after leaving home before 8am. I am pretty tired when I get home. Some days I can be home an hour or 2 later depending on meetings/going to their parents evenings and whatever. As I feared they are not caring at all and every day that I get home it is messy. The bedroom is back to looking quite revolting. No effort is even made to wash some cups up for before i get home. So it looks no different to how it did before really. It annoys me that noone can be bothered to put things back where they got them. So an iron will be plugged in and left on the floor. Things just shoved on a table/floor/wherever. Spills not wiped up. You know how it is. Its really quite upsetting to see when I know that it would have taken less than 10 mins a day to keep it looking nice once they got in from school. Instead I walk in to a mess, tired and just cant face sorting it all for it to be a mess again the next day. So it seems I spend my weekends re tidying for it to be messed up on Monday when I walk through the door. I am tired of shouting/begging/bribing/dishing out punishements and nothing ever changes. I have tried leaving it all and have done so for 2 weeks once but I was the only one that cared.

Excuse the long rant! So really what I am wondering is how do you keep it clean once you have done a decent tidy when you are are with people who couldnt really care less??

Hot - I'd like to know that too. / for you

The slow deep clean continues: today I have descaled the kettle and washed the filter from the dyson which was so filthy I'm wondering if I've ever cleaned it

Yesterday I did a big clear out of another toy box and chucked loads of stuff. Very satisfying.

How's everyone else getting on?

Hot I'm sorry, that sounds shit . don't have words of wisdom although kondo suggests just focusing on your stuff and they will all happily fall into line?

Slightly that sounds great :) I Adm back from being away so have all the unpacking and washing 4 people generate. However am following flylady so need to do my weekly clean and then hallway porch etc AND dining room which is not going to happen esp as I wasn't to do it properly.

Today's challenge is getting inside the radiator to clean in there for the first time ever

Over the weekend I was pretty busy with other things but I did manage to get a few jobs done.

I emptied out the cutlery drawer and cleaned it, got rid of about 15 old calpol spoons (I kept 6), and a few other bits that should have long ago disappeared. I put the tray in the dishwasher as I was doing a "clean the machine " wash, and also threw in the drainer for clean dishes from the sink.

I replaced the logs basket in the sitting room with a much smaller one.

Cleaned the inside of my car- hoovered and cleaned windows.

Tidied front garden beds and swept the path.

So not fantastic progress but a few more jobs ticked off .

And I didn't get to do a clean the machine job on the washing machine as it was quite busy. Apart from the regular laundry, I did a deep clean load of whites, serious stain removal and brightening setting and chemicals, and threw in the fabric liner from the laundry basket which kinda needed a good clean. Another load was the boating gear that is now finished with until late spring so that needed a non-bio and gentle wash. And the wet weather gear got washed and re-waterproofed as well.

I have the stuff to clean the washing machine so I must try to do that someday this week.

baby how do you clean behind a radiator?? Mine are revolting but I only know this because I've just looked. Am I going to have to Blue Peter this with a light saber and a tea towel?

I don't know! I haven't had time to try today but I wamt to get that grill bit off and clean inside them if possible... Tips appreciated :)

Me again, given up on the radiator for this month as I am following flylady and now in the kitchen. Just pulled out and cleaning behind the washing machine and dishwasher, actually not as bad as expected! Also did the front between the buttons and seal with a toothpick and baby wipes, was suitably satisfyingly :)

I then scrubbed at some dye on the seal that has been there a year, funnily enough it comes off (slowly) if I actually clean it rather than look at it mournfully. Off to put the baby to bed then get some paint out to finish the wall that I couldn't reach a year ago last March as it didn't occur to me to move the dishwasher out