A quick update

I do have another corner of the kitchen to talk about, but I thought I'd do a quick post about cleaning my desk today.

Before:

After:

It looks soooo much better now, don't you think?

Knock, knock?

No, it's not a joke, I'm just coming back in from a long absence and thought it would be polite. :)

I've started up here and there with a plan or a poa or basics, but I just wasn't getting anywhere.  And I could blame it on illness and things, or I could just suck it up and admit that I'm a lazy wench most of the time and just wasn't hauling my ample butt up out of this chair (or bed, more likely) to get any real work done.  I'm not sure what bit me Saturday night, but suddenly I thought I was really ready to get moving.  I decided to start in one end/corner of the house and move out from there doing anything and everything I could reasonably do along the way.

I woke up Sunday morning, ran over to the dollar store across town (which of course uses "run" in the sense that I drove, because there's no running from me, especially across our admittedly small town), and plunked down a bunch of money on cleaning supplies and came home to get to work.  Incidentally, all that stuff I bought?  2 things I thought I was out of I had several of, 2 things I thought I had I can't find, and in the first 5 minutes the new long-handled duster went missing.  Oh, and I still don't have anything that will cut through grease effectively.  And so it goes.

I really did work yesterday.  Probably a solid 4 hours all together.  What I got done was a generally unused, small corner of my kitchen - but it's DONE, man.  I'll give you the tour:

Oh yes, let's start here.  I was mixing dilutions of a few cleaners into empty spray bottles, when I spilled straight-up bleach onto my navy stretch capris. *headsmack*

I remembered to start taking pics after I moved the popcorn machine out of this corner and picked up the first few things - including the lid to a round, covered trash can which we haven't owned in about 2 years.  This is possibly the "deepest, darkest" corner of my house, kind of an afterthought corner in the back end of the kitchen.  The only thing it's good for is storing the popcorn machine, and as such has been much neglected an abused.

After picking up, sweeping, and scrubbing, this is as good as the floor gets.  The vinyl flooring came with the house all scratched up that badly,  I swear.  The tall piece of wood leaning in the corner is part of the door frame of C's room...a story for another day.  It's staying there, out of the way, until I work my way around to there and figure out how to reattach it decently.  Or maybe it's the one from my room?  One of us is missing part of a door frame.

That's my large freezer on the left, which at one point - when my desk was in this part of the house - was "cleverly" used as a white board.  The last brainstorm session stayed too long and now it won't come off.  At least you can't see it from the rest of the kitchen.  Oh, and one of the kids *coughCcough* added to it later, I found.  The hanging cords were disGUSting.  I barely remembered to unplug them before cleaning, but I did.

There are 2 windows in this corner, which was lovely when I spent the day there at my desk.  Now, they're really just pointless.  Worse, they're awful.  I cleaned the glass and trim inside, but they're no better to look through than when I started.  It doesn't photograph well, but the screens are torn, and there are hundreds of bugs, leaves, and other things stuck between the screens or storm windows and the interior pane.  I don't even know how to clean that all out.  I'll work on that later, when I'm cleaning outside I guess.

Here is the aforementioned popcorn machine.  It, itself, still needs to be cleaned, but it's back in its home now that the surroundings are much better.  It's hiding the cleaned and better contained cords.

Once again I started moving things before taking the opening picture.  Perhaps you can see above that there were random dishes stacked to the left of the microwave and others on top, in addition to Santa there.

The microwave was actually worse than it appears, because half the mess was on the glass plate that I'd already put in the dishwasher with everything else I moved from this area.  This poor microwave, by the way, is from around 1983.  I distinctly remember when we got it; it was such a "new" thing that the appliance store that sold them held cooking classes free with purchase for something like 6 weeks, to teach new owners how to use them.  I used to have the microwave fudge recipe from a class memorized.  The fancy button settings don't work anymore, the meat probe thermometer is long gone, and it isn't even-heating anymore, but by golly it's still kicking.

The left side done...

...the right side, not so much.  Those boxes there have been sitting, unpacked, since my mom moved in, in 2007.  I found Christmas plates, crystal glasses, and an almost full (large) bottle of rum.

The microwave done...

...and there it is.  That's a lot of Pediasure on the left, that used to be stacked on the floor in front of the microwave.  The picture on the windowsill is an old one of the family from when C was a baby; I found it with the boxes and cleaned it up.  Inside the buffet is almost entirely Christmas dishes, so I'll clean those and the interior shelves in November when I get them out.  There's no need to open it until then so I'll leave it alone for now.

So that was my Sunday triumph: one useless corner, one piece of furniture (exterior), and one countertop appliance.  Onward and upward from here.

Clean up, aisle 7

Homeless produce + binless toy shelf + dollar store bins = personal produce department.  Special thanks to Kim, Jamie, and Teresa for the brainstorming and outright idea.

I need to get a move on

I'm having a hard enough time getting through the day-to-day so I haven't even looked at the back pages.  So today I brought one of the office tasks forward as one of the daily challenges: clean an office (or playroom, or similar) wall, ceiling to floor including molding.  I didn't do it today of course, but I gave us all weekend to complete it for bonus points.so, just for grins, here are a couple of pictures of my wall before, and hopefully by Sunday I'll have an after picture that actually looks better.  Any ideas how to get the blue, um, marker? I think? off of badly painted paneling?

A small triumph

I *finally* really tackled something.  And naturally I come to tell y'all about it and I find myself half an hour into a 2 hour image upload maintenance for Blogger and pictures are disabled.  So if you want to see pics you'll have to check my photo gallery (link in sidebar), the last 5 photos.

We have this "desk".  I use the term loosely because it's badly proportioned and arranged and is basically unusable as an actual desk, as in to sit at, even without a computer.  It was A's for quite a while to just store stuff on but then she got a big art desk and didn't need it (or have room for it) anymore.  Since then it's been in the corner of the living room holding some books and some of B's larger school stuff and the board games.

It's been bugging me for a while because in addition to being badly designed it's also not terribly well made.  The bottom shelf, both sides, and the slide out "keyboard tray" (which no one could really use for a keyboard) were all coming apart and it was only a matter of time before the whole thing collapsed.  Nothing was missing or broken, the pegs had just come completely apart, and the tray was off the track.

I got some wood glue - don't know if it'll help anything but it makes me feel better - and forced everything back together on the bottom.  I cleaned it off the best I could, everything but the paint splotches.  It's simply not worth the time or effort to try to get those off and it's not a showpiece or anything so they stay and I'm not fussed about it.  I found a disturbing amount of junk under it and got rid of all of that.  I moved the books to another bookshelf and put what was left on the upper shelves away from E, dusting off as I went.  I wanted to get rid of those guitars (Rock Band and Guitar Hero) altogether but I don't have anywhere else to put them so I did a cursory dusting of them, what I could reach.  I should've mopped or scrubbed or otherwise cleaned the floor while I had the desk out but I was somewhat limited in time and frankly didn't feel like breaking out more tools.  I can get under it now without moving the desk so I can still do the floor later when I do the rest of the room.

So there's my first big push...only 3 1/3 weeks into PCCX.  Yay?

A slow start

Here's a shocker: I haven't really started yet.  That's right, you heard me.  7 days of PCCX behind us, and I've cleaned nothing.  I did - finally - get my general set of before pictures done last night.  If you go look let me just say that no rumbles were done in advance of those shots (as if that weren't patently obvious), so on a day when rumbles are done it doesn't look quite that bad.  The really surprising bit is that B's room seems to be the cleanest one in the house.  Or at least the most picked-up room.  I assure you, it still needs to be sandblasted and scoured.

In better news, I have done all but one of week one's holiday tasks.  Yay me!

One way or another this place will look better than those pictures by Thanksgiving.  It may require a flamethrower or a bulldozer, but it will be better.

Anyone else have progress to report? *coughcelestecough*

Easy Work in the Living Room

How often do you find yourself psyching yourself out?  You know, deciding a job is too big/difficult, so why bother even starting?  Remember, even 15 minutes of PCCX is 75 minutes for Zone Work + You get points for the PCCX job you did.  Even if you're not doing points, 15 minutes a day.  That's it.  That's all you have to do.  Wipe down a light switch or a door.  Polish a table.  Clean off a shelf.  These are all small jobs, but if you do one a day, it adds up.  That's why we're here.  I'm discovering that even the smallest of jobs is now making me smile when I walk by because it's done.

So, what did I do yesterday for day 2?  Well, I'm quite limited in my mobility because of the knee surgery on Monday, but I did manage to clean off and polish an end table, clean and polish the coffee table, wipe down all of the coasters, clean out one of the baskets under the coffee table (throwing out 3 magazines, 2 remotes, 1 coaster and something else I can't remember LOL).  I also wiped down one of the lamps and had a helluva time dusting the lampshade because it had so much cat hair on it (oops, didn't take points for that, will add to today's).  So it wasn't a lot of work.  It took me about 30 minutes to do it.  But the living room looked a LOT better, even if only in my eyes! 

Here's a few pics I took of the before/after:

One more day down, let's see what else can be accomplished...

Never Look Up!!!

I made a mistake...

I was sitting at the kitchen table, and I looked up.

Like I said. Never look up.

I couldn't very well just sit there and continue to eat my meals knowing what was directly overhead.  So, I filled the dishpan with soapy water, took apart the fixture and began the soakfest.  Then I grabbed some Fantastik and papertowels and went to work.

This is definitely one of those hated jobs that nobody wants to do.  In reality, it took me less than 30 minutes, with the majority of the work going into removal and put back of the bulbs (Not really the bulbs, but the light fixture but I didn't want to say light fixture because that refers to the entire thing which isn't what I did but but light covers....THAT's the word I was looking for....Light Covers!!!)  Whatever. 

Pretty!!!!  Now I look up and smile :D

Under the Sink

I hate the area under my kitchen sink. It's one of those most dreaded areas to clean. I organized it once since we moved here 2 years ago. A combination of my household cleaners and my father's Depression era thinking of "If it's on sale really cheap than I should buy it now because I might need more in 10 years and not be able to afford it then" has left me with cleaners in 6 different places in the house, stocked to the gills.  Not having household cleaners is not my reason for not doing PCCX. That's for sure.

Last year, we had a leak and my dear husband just threw things back in after he fixed it. Um, thanks? I've just not had the inclination to go digging in there, overrun by cleaners, sponges and the like. But I about lost it the other day. You see, if we're getting low on dish detergent on the counter, and my father doesn't have more sitting right there in the front of the cabinet under the sink, he must go buy more.

Clearly that bottle was not "in his face" because he bought 2 more. 

 

 

 

 

 So, with my Ipod fully charged and my playlist ready, I went in....

Yep, that big black spot is mold. Why? Remember I mentioned the water leak? Apparently my husband didn't bother to wipe it down. *Sigh*  Gee....I wonder if I have any cleaners to handle that...

Now, you may think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not.  Under the sink included:

• A furniture cleaning set that we got when we purchased our couch 7 years ago. It's never been used. I tried throwing it out 2 years ago but my husband insisted we might need it someday.  
• 3 boxes of Mr Clean Magic Erasers
• Vacuum bags (slightly water damaged)
• 2 different LCD cleaners & a bottle of a distilled water mixture for cleaning LCD's
• Can of air
• Furniture Polish and polish wipes
• Resolve, Oxy Clean floor cleaner and a Steam Vac Cleaner
• 4 plastics bags of various sponges (3 were opened).  After removing the plastic bags, I ended up with 37 sponges.
• Bug Spray
• 2 cans of Lysol disinfectant (which smell really bad, so we don't use it but keep it???)
• 4 brushes
• 3 pairs of latex gloves
• 3 bottles of window cleaners
• 2 organizing racks
• Strainer
• 6 bottles of dish detergent
• 5 various household cleaners
• 3 different lime/rust cleaners
• 3 boxes of steel wool cleaners (My father said we were out and to add to my shopping list, so I did and bought some, but he didn't see I did, so he bought some and we already had some *sigh*)
•  Murphy's Oil Soap
• A "garbage can" with more sponges in it....WTF??
• My coffee can of grease
• and lastly, 82 of those dish cloths/wipes (we don't use these)

Back to the problem of cleaning out under the sink and that nasty ass mold stain.  I grabbed the Lysol Kitchen cleaner (with bleach), grabbed a pair of latex gloves and one of the disposable dish cloths.  First of all, I hate latex gloves. With a passion. They're a pain in the ass to put on and your hand/arm sweat while using them. But I was NOT touching that mold with my bare hands!!!

Afterwards, I condensed as much as I could and put it all back all neat and organized and stuff. 

After 3 hours, I was DONE!

I....survived!!!

then...

my father entered the room and sat down.

He asked me about the black spot he saw under the sink while it was empty.

I explained it was mold from the water leak...

He then asked...

Did you use bleach?

*insert sigh of disgust here*

Yes Dad.

"Oh" he says..."I wasn't sure if you knew"

My brain went into overload...

Seriously?!?  Are you friggin kidding me?!?!?  I'm 40 years old!!!  *Insert swear words here* Old man...*insert more swear words*  Raised a family of three boys *insert more swear words* Only living here to help you out *insert more swear words* I need alcohol *insert more swear words*

My reply...

Yes Dad, I knew.

Pantry

Yeah, I suck.

Daily PCCX posts.  Right. As if.

I'm in a funk that I just can't seem to get out of.  No matter how many times I say "I'll start tomorrow," tomorrow never happens.  I need to get back into a daily routine. I'll start tomorrow.

But I did do something today.  I organized my pantry. Exciting stuff, huh?  Yeah, it wasn't really that difficult to be honest.  In fact, it probably took longer to take the pictures and edit them.  Still, its one job down.  So, without further adieu, he are my before and afters:

Top 2 Shelves Before

Top 2 Shelves After

Bottom 2 Shelves Before

 

 

Bottom 2 Shelves After

Cramming lots in early

The insurance adjuster is due between 11 and 12 today. I don't know where he's coming from or from how far out he will call to let me know he's on his way, but he did say he'd make that call so I'm hoping I have half an hour or so.

While the kids got a ton of work done yesterday, there is still much more that needs doing before he gets here. I've rallied the troops and gotten all the "public" areas swept and picked up and dishes going. I would still like to clear and clean the kitchen counters and mop as much of the floor as possible.

None of this can be done without breaks however, so here I am to introduce zones 2-8, also known as the rest of my kitchen.

Ok, there's a lot of pictures and I don't know how to put a slide show in a Blogger post, so if you want to see pictures try this gallery.

The freezer and area in front of it is zone 2. The kitchen breakfront (as opposed to the dining room breakfront, coming later) and the area in front of it are zone 3. The refrigerator and in front of it is zone 4, ditto the stove in zone 5. Zone 6 is the pantry and can shelf and, yes, the floor in front of and immediately beside them. Zone 7 is the right side counter, cabinets, and floor to the dining room, and zone 8 is the left side counter, cabinets, and floor to the dining room.

There's the lousy linoleum throughout, including a large area of deep gouges in zones 2 and 3 where previous owners had apparently had a table and chairs, pieces of it coming up at the edge of the dining room, back door, and in front of the dishwasher, and bumps in zone 8 where there is a lot of water damage to the wood floor beneath - not related to our current ceiling issues.

Behind the pantry is the cheap paneling continuing from zone 1. Above all the counters is a backsplash of the same cheap laminate as the counters, complete with peeling daisy border. Two more windows: one above the sink and one at the far left of the counter.

The biggest problem in the kitchen, aside from general mayhem and horrible decorating, is bugs. All the rain has driven bugs inside and I haven't yet gotten a handle on it. So far it's (mostly) confined to the kitchen and I'm determined to keep it there. Well, get it gone really, but before that keep it from spreading.

So that's the rest of the kitchen and the before pictures, and some significant work is getting done today. Signing off until the afters...

Zone 1 - before

Area 1 is the north edge of my kitchen, where this lovely teak buffet once belonging to my grandmother resides. It is/was supposed to be the home to all my Christmas dishes, but it was full of large silver pieces and empty boxes some of the Christmas plates had come out of this past year. Reasoning that the boxes would just take more room and I wouldn't want to bother putting them in and taking them out every time, I chucked the boxes.

Oh wait, this is the before post. Ok, so there's the buffet with all the Christmas stuff scattered and stacked; the microwave which looks like a before picture but is really an after since A cleaned it a week or so ago; the horribly small and virtually unusable corner where large trays and things are stacked, including the hanging pot rack I so desperately need, still in the box, 3 years later; the opposite, larger corner where the humongous popcorn maker is supposed to go, and hey, that's where that extra trash can went; and the popcorn maker itself. The area surrounding is cheap paneling, lousy linoleum, and old windows. One of which, you can sort of see, is home to a HUGE wasps' nest, which really needs to be taken care of, like, yesterday. Any ideas that don't involve getting close to the darn thing?

So today I'm beginning to tackle this zone, one piece at a time. News at 11. Actually that's probably a pretty accurate estimate.

Steam Cleaning Part 3

I know I haven't posted a part 1 and 2, but I've done the work and posted it under ummm...my last post, which was Monday, or Tuesday. Tuesday...yeah, that's it. Cuz I was a day late posting. Right then. On to the tale...

So as stated previously, I'm detail vacuuming and steam cleaning in sections. Partly because its easier than having the entire floor wet and trying to move furniture around and mostly because I'm too lazy to do it all at once.

Oh if only there was a magical steam cleaner that would get rid of the cigarette burns too.  These burns are along the main walkway (although normally covered by the red rug) because Dad used to have a rocker in the area and would fall asleep while smoking.  So, now its time to start moving the rocker and lamp.

Anyways...back to the living room I go and move the lamp.  Now, I'd like to point out that I DO vacuum several times per week, but only the "middles" as suggested by Flylady and leave this "detailed" vacuuming to PCCX.  We won't discuss how I never finish PCCX.

I love my cats. I love my cats. I love my cats.

So I spent about a good 20 minutes just vacuuming the floor and along the baseboards.  I followed that up with about an hour steam cleaning the section.  Overall, it came out pretty well.

 

So, that's my blog post.  I haven't done anything else PCCX wise because its been too hot or I've felt lousy.  But, I'll *try* to do at least 1 project per day, even if its just to wipe down a light switch so I can blog about it and keep Amanda from nagging me. LOL

Summer PCCX

Whose dumb idea was it to have PCCX in the summer? When it's hot? VERY hot!!  It doesn't matter where you are in the U.S., July is the hottest month of the year.  So, let's sweat our asses off and clean like our mothers-in-law are coming over in 2 days.  Except, we're gonna clean for 6 straight weeks.  Thanks so much for remembering Amanda.  Appreciate it.  Really.

Anyways, I actually started pccx a few days early.  I decided my living room is easier to do in sections to detail vacuum and steam clean because of moving furniture around and let's face it, its easier to say "avoid this 4x8 section of the floor" then "NOBODY walk in the living room for the next 8 hours!!!"  Besides, the bathroom is off of the living room, and the cats don't listen. So, I'm doing sections.

Now, I'm going to apologize in advance.  I rarely remember to take pictures for the before/after effect.  I usually remember while in process or after I'm done.  Maybe I'll get better at it if I do this daily, right? Right???

So, to begin. I have before/after pics of my front entry.  Mind you, hardly anyone visits that area because we strictly use the back door.  The cats however, like to throw up there. Often.  Leaving wonderful stains for me to clean up because nobody else in this house has the balls (Yeah, I said it. Three men in the house and I'm the one with the balls).  I digress.  So, my only visitors to that area are perfect strangers that don't know any better and come to the front door. Isn't this the site I want them to see when first meeting us? NOT!!  So, I took everything out (a bench and about 50,000 boxes because my Dad can't bear to throw them out because we'll need a box that size one day).  THEN remembered to grab the camera

So, that was Friday.  Saturday, I did the section near the bathroom, about 4 x 8 in size.  Do you think I remembered the camera? Nope.  So, no pictures, but I swear, I did it.  Sunday I tackled the section across from the bathroom where we have a desk/computer.  If you own a pet, you'll understand the amount of pet hair in the before picture. (Oh, and I remembered RIGHT after I did one sweep of the vacuum LOL)

The next day, I took a break from the floor because I ran out of cleaner for the steam vac (except I found out last night that I do have another small bottle under the kitchen sink, which means that 1.) I can work on the living room floor again tomorrow, and 2.) I need to clean under the kitchen sink and see if I can find other cleaners and maybe Jimmy Hoffa.  Anyways, I decided to tackle the microwave.  Didn't get a before pic, did get an after shot though :)

My last group of pictures are strictly after shots, you'll just have to trust me that I did the job.  Why? Because I'm too hot to get up and take a pictures because its JULY!!! These shots are in the entryway. Today I decided to look up and dust. Can I just say, ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww...never look up!!!

Okay, so that's my last 5 days. Even though PCCX technically didn't start until yesterday. So, consider me ahead by starting a few days beforehand, or late because I didn't post yesterday LOL