Rock The Housework Chat

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www.rockthehousework.co.uk/

Anyone else rocking the housework?

My housekeeping was always somewhat chaotic, and since these were launched, my house is far more functional and a podcast away from actually looking rather orderly, even at short notice.

I tend to pick what I need each day rather than following the tradtitonal TOMM, but do refer back to that to help get some jobs done if they're in danger of being neglected.

I think my most used tracks are the "Calm Laundry Put Away" the "Bitesize Bathroom Blitz" and the "Quick Kitchen Turnaround"

Bookend the day pm edition completed last night, very nice and calming after a busy week.
Also did a dreamy after dinner kitchen clean so kitchen is decent for the weekend.
Today, will probably do the Bookend the day am edition plus a downstairs clean and a L1. About one hour in total. I know weekends should be housework free in classic TOMM but my work schedule doesn’t allow that.

Managing to maintain a pretty decluttered and clean enough home with RTH. Probably could do with a deep clean of bathrooms soon. And need to sort out wardrobe but can’t move into warmer clothes yet due to this strange weather.

@FourTeaFallOut well done on doing the car for L3 Friday. It’s so nice to drive around in a clean car. For the carpets, what about giving them a shampoo? We only do this every two years in the summer so the carpets dry quickly and hire the RugDoctor. We only have carpets upstairs and have shoes off but the water that comes out is pretty filthy! If it is only in some areas, you could do a spot clean with your own carpet cleaner if you have one maybe.

I don't think you should pay any attention to the idea that you need to fit all the cleaning around the margins of a busy working day only to do no cleaning on the weekend. I think I'd just employ the spirit of the advice, which is little and often so that whole days aren't lost catching up.

The carpet crud is more crumbs and grit ground into the weave of the carpet than muck, when a carpet cleaner would come into its own. I'm going to give it a go with my dh's Henry (lives in the work van, so wasn't here yesterday) and see if it has more muscle than the Dyson. Failing that, I have resolved to just not look down 😁

I'd absolutely love to jettison the winter clothes but they are still firmly in the mix of my everyday clothes. I even had to wear my winter coat last week when we had a frost. 🤷I hope shorts get a look in at some point.

It's been a quiet week here, spent mainly ailing with some horrible lurgy. Coming out of it now- it's been 24 hours since my last Lemsip, and I've done the 20 min downstairs tidy to restore a bit of order. TBH it wasn't that bad as I wasn't moving enough to generate much mess other than tissues which I've scooped up every few hours 😂

Bonus, at the weekend I succumbed to a fancy airfryer, so I've been playing with that and not generated many pans. I'm aiming to try and clean it as I go... I know that's the sensible strategy...not sure about sustainable though...

Oh no, that sounds dreadful. Poor you. Hope you recover quickly - or, failing that, may your lemsip last the full 6hrs.

Have fun with the fancy air fryer though. Which one did you get? I have a small appliance habit which needs to be curbed, so feel free to get into details so I can live vicariously (sad sap alert)

It's a 7-in-1 ninja. I need to try out the pressure cooker function, as being a chronic procrastinator who saves "what shall we have for dinner" until 8pm, I can benefit greatly from speeding food up. It's also got a slow cooker function.

I'll clean the old slow cooker up and put it in the loft. They do have uses for things like taking to camp or parties, but it can now be taken out of the kitchen.

Yesterday I did a frozen stirfry veg mix in the bottom of the pot and grilled some fish above it. It cooked well and nice to just have the single pot to use rather than a pan and the grill pan to wash afterwards.

I have a pressure cooker option on my ninja. It took me a while to build up the confidence to use it. Not sure what I was expecting really - it just seemed risky - like releasing the steam might blow the ceiling off 🤣. Now it's the only way we do rice and I use it to make sandwich chicken for the lunches too. Have fun with it!

Mojo back in action
Made use of 10min tidies to deal with some more stubborn clutter beginning to get notions about permanency, and a stairs vacuum session. Plus some short kitchen and bathroom sessions for ongoing maintainence.

It was quite a productive hour or so 😎

Calm upstairs clean completed yesterday. Love that one. ❤️I have taken to alternating the upstairs and downstairs one each week plus L1s each day - is keeping the wolf from the door, as Gemma says. 🤣A 20 minute tidy session also really effective. Going on holiday next week so just want to maintain house in good state for that.

That's a good idea.
I have a weakness for upstairs.

My Tuesdays are busy, so I don't stay in synch with the method, and a lot of upstairs depends on the way the laundry cycle is flowing... or not!
On the other hand, the mess builds up more slowly as we "live" downstairs, so downstairs mess needs dealing with much more frequently and it's more in my face so hits iritating motivation threshold much quicker.

Even with the guided cleans, I still struggle with consistency, I'm just much better at catching up and doing it more promptly and having more rooms in a decent state at a time than I was.

I don't know where to start - have been busy with work and have finally got a day for housework and every single room needs it!

There's a 1 hr whole house clean and then you could see what you're left with?

Thank you. I have got sucked into cleaning out a "corner of doom" which is very time consuming (cheers, dh). But have got dc's room done so that's a win!

I like today's new drop. I'm having one of those struggling to keep up with the kitchen phases and it's got me through finishing loading the dishwasher and setting off and tidying some of the "stuck areas like the clutter zone and draining rack that keep being overlooked. I can come back to it later for another 15 minute session to clear the additional washing up. Meanwhile it's helped me keep on top of other rooms.

The DCs needed cakes baking and Food Tech ingrediants measuring within 24 hours, so that added extra to manage mid-week.

I’m attempting to use half term to do a full week of level ones and level twos. The temptation is there to start boot camping everything but I suspect I’d do a couple of rooms and lose focus, whereas a proper full week seems more doable. It’s Week 3, so I’ve done the corresponding living room clean and a Monday level 1. Working tomorrow and have to be in the office but should manage to do the Tuesday cleans in the evening.

Just in case it is helpful, there's a split, two part, before and after work Tuesday in the bank which might be helpful if you have to turn all the bedding through the wash.

Thanks @FourTeaFallOut , I’m not changing the sheets as I did this today and at the weekend but might do the bed making and tidy part 1 before I leave. That would tick off a bit of the level one as well.

No problem. Wish I was similarly motivated but I am in complete bank holiday lounge mode.

Cracking on here. Did the Tuesday and Wednesday cleans all in one yesterday:
• Tuesday level one (didn’t make or strip beds, just turned them back to air)
• Upbeat bedroom reset (made the kids beds at the end)
• 10 minute hallway clean (I live in a flat so this bit never takes me long)
• Wednesday level one (bathroom bits, made our bed and hung out a wash)

Just finished the Thursday level one and two in the kitchen for week three. Should really take out the rubbish and recycling but I’m knackered and the block caretaker has already put them out on the kerb for collection so I’ll do it tomorrow.

I did the bathroom deep clean today but I ended up spending 2 hours instead of 20 minutes - it was really manky though!

I always think the bathroom cleans are a bit ambitious. It's a bit of a personal bug bear. I just can't keep up with Gem, especially cleaning the loo. It's like the exact opposite of making beds, which -im not sure if I am doing something wrong- takes about ten seconds irl but there is always acres of time for that.

I tend to borrow time off sinks for the loo. I have sons with poor aim (they're ND)

I tend to keep on top of them with the bitesize clean several times a week which keeps them managable... apart from DS1's loo... (he has a history of food allergies affecting output...)

I've had a lovely week off domestic duties and it was very much appreciated 😁

I find the bathroom stuff quite difficult as well, although if I kept up with it more then it would probably be easier. Plus I live in a hard water area so I have to blast everything with Viakal and give it a few minutes to work; if I forget to do that at the start of the bathroom section of level one then I’m lost 🤣

Conversely it doesn’t take me six minutes to clean my kitchen floor, but I do have a small kitchen. Might try the kitchen version of level ones next week and do a bathroom clean on Thursday, although it’s my birthday so sod that!

I've got a large kitchen diner, so tend to struggle with lack of time on those sessions.

It's going to be a tidying week. DS was away on camp, then I was away. DS's kit hasn't been touched since he came in.
However, credit to him, he did tidy up his bedroom surprisingly well of his own accord. DH is a fairly tidy person, so while the sides had space and the dishwasher had been used, he hadn't given the sides or floor a clean down. At least the bins were put out.

I've had a good blitz today. 20 min tidy up to freshen downstairs up followed by just vacuuming, then a good catch up in the kitchen helped by capacity in the dishwasher. I did the original Dreamy Kitchen followed by the 15min reset to finish off.

Much more civilised now!

I did a full house reset. Took ages but I can really see the difference!