Spring Cleaning Challenge {Laundry Room}

As I mentioned over the weekend I am starting my spring cleaning!  I love a clean home and have found since having Zach that most of my house duties have fallen at waist side.  I would much rather spend time on the floor playing with Zach making a mess then I would picking it all up.  Hence my house has become a disaster zone! I am somewhat embarrassed to show pictures of our house or to have people unexpectedly show up for a visit!

But here we are at the beginning of a new season and what seems to feel like a fresh new start.  What is it about spring that makes us feel like a new beginning, I mean isn’t that what the New Year is for?  I set resolutions to get organized every year and every year I don’t really start working on said resolution until the first day of spring. When I sat down after reading about the Spring Cleaning Challenge I thought long and hard about where to begin this year.  At first I was thinking the kitchen… but decided against it because that one is going to be a HUGE task.  Lots of baby proofing to do in that room!  Then I thought about the office … but decided against that because I have one to many projects to do in that room so I would get derailed on the rest of my cleaning tasks.  Then it hit me.  The laundry room would be the PERFECT room to start this cleaning adventure!

So I set out with my box of tissues since I currently have a cold and my determination to not come out of the room until one of two things happened.  It was fully cleaned and sparkling or Zach got hungry…. Luckily for me I was able to finish before the little guy needed to nurse again! YAY!!!

What I started with was clearing the floor, seems simple enough but let me tell you laundry piles up very quickly in our house these days. While doing so I located some missing socks that I had been on the hunt for…  I was really starting to come to the conclusion that the dryer had eaten them like it has done so many times in the past.  In my journey to clear the floor I started working on some loads of laundry, perfect time right! I would be there then the finished so I wouldn’t be able to “forget” they were in the dryer and or washer!  Next up was the storage drawers! 

I bought these storage drawers a couple years back and had them somewhat organized buy not completely and over the last year or so they have gotten somewhat out of control.  This was going to stop ASAP!  So I went and got my handy dandy label maker and came up with a system that would work for me and also something the hubby would be able to follow along with.  Because if we know one thing in regards to organization it would be in order for it to work the WHOLE house needs to be on board.  So I labeled them and filled them with the appropriate items to fit said label.  This was step one… step two what to show CJ and get his thoughts on it so we can both be on the same page!  He walked in and LOVED it instantly which just made me a one happy girl to see that he was on board for a better organized and cleaner home. 

On to phase three of operation laundry room!  You see when we moved into this house the previous owner left a few things behind.  She left a table, like a HUGE wooden table that was painted this weird pale sunshiny yellow in the dining room which by the way she had painted school bus yellow.  I really think she had a thing for yellow.  And she left a ton of cleaning supplies, none of which were useful to us!  But I had put off cleaning them out, the supplies not the table that went right away, so the time had coming for this task which was WAY overdue.  I am trying to slowly transition our harsh chemical filled cleaners for more homemade cleaners so this is a work in progress.  So the harsh chemical cleaners she had left behind we disposed of and now I was able to sort out and organize the cabinets.  Once I finished this I was extremely happy.  Although, something still appeared to be missing in the total overhaul cleaning that was taking place.

 

I then tackled the washer and dryer, I pulled them out away from the wall then swept & mopped behind them.  Then I wiped them both down until they shined.  Once the loads I currently had working were complete I started the through washing of the washer. Yes you MUST wash your washer! Haha I found directions on how to do so here.  This was something that could be working while I was doing other stuff around the house playing with Zach.  But while the washer was working on cleaning itself I took a step back at what I had accomplished!  I felt so many things at once here, excitement that the first installment of my spring cleaning adventures was complete and relieved to be done so we can now stay on top of it and keep it that way.  Now that the room is in order and clean I am able to start on some of the projects I want to work on from my pinterest boards!  So be on the lookout for some crafting post!  Now I just need to decide what room to tackle next... any thoughts?!