BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Cleaning Cleaning Challenge! Clean One Area!

OK my house is a COMPLETE disaster, I have just spent too much time on the computer. Every room (and I mean every) is full of junk. I need to take control.

I challenge everyone here to clean just ONE area of their home each day. Don't even try to take it all on. My challenge for today is to just get the bedroom floor clean!! I have clothes I need to put away and haven't done it. So really! Right now! I am going to go put them away

What is your task for today?

I guess that would be the stack of dishes in the kitchen sink.

I'm the Cleaning Editor, but I have ten people living in one house. Yes, we get dishes stacked after meals!

Now what is funny is I got distracted by my desire to get the movies off my cable recorder (Persuasion etc. from the Austen series on PBS) and onto my laptop so I can cut them to DVD. And I've been working on this ALL NIGHT LONG because my stupid Dazzle device that moves the video over will not move the audio over. So I've been upgrading and updating and reinstalling. I am going to try one more thing and then I will work on the clothes.

I *did* get the living room cleaned up a bit while I worked on this though

10 people in one house, wow!! We only have 2

OK I was motivated since I'd posted in the forum - I went upstairs and cleaned up the bedroom!! I can see the floor!! Now I'm charging up the Roomba up there and soon it'll go roaming around and vacuum it up for me, and tomorrow I'll steam clean it.

Progress!!

I got the kitchen, but now it has to be done again. That is one area that never stays perfect.

You're teasing us with your Roomba, you know that?

I'd like to hear more about the Roomba. Floors are my big downfall since I can't vacuum (health reasons)and getting my DH to do it is rather like pulling teeth. Specifically, how does it do on picking up fibers such as pet hair? Also, does it work well on hard wood and/or composite floors? Can it handle dust bunnies, even ones about the size of a T-rex?

Also, has anyone had any experience with that new Roomba that is supposed to mop?

This will tell you how cluttered the house was - today I got the upstairs hallways clean so we can actually vacuum the hallways! Oh and also I cleaned out the entry area of Bob's office. The actual office area is his and it's a mess but that's his mess I have enough "real" messes that I'll leave that one alone.

The mop Roomba is several years old, that's the Scooba Yes we have that and it's *great*. But we haven't used in a while because the kitchen floor is covered with stuff That room comes later

The Roomba specifically is made for pet owners, we have two cats and it's *great*. We love it. They even have special pet brushes if you have a ton of pets (i.e. special rollers for inside the Roomba). It is very good with dust. It goes right under the futon, somewhere we had trouble vacuuming manually. It has a side spinny brush to get into corners.

ok so now I am motivated! We cleaned the back bedroom that is like a second living room and we can now see the floor! I cleaned out my draws so that they all shut!! I also cleaned out my closet so now I realize that My Fat Jeans are now My skinny Jeans and I need new cloths! that was depressing!
so today I am going to finish cleaning my closets and dust and vaccum the floor then clean the junk out of the bath room and the bed room!!! then on to the closet....tomorrow! lol dont want to over do it ya know!

Woo hoo! Seeing the floor is SO amazing We had to dance through obstacle piles in our house, I know exactly what you mean!!

Good for you for taking on the challenge!!

Hey we have forums for losing weight if you want, we can help you get back into those jeans

My task for today is to set the Roomba loose upstairs to get that new hallway floor clean - and then I have to get the second bedroom cleaned out a bit. My dad's coming over tomorrow and will stay overnight so I need the bedroom to at least be walk-inable

I have tried every diet know and unknow to man and i just gain weight quicker on them all I cant even lose the weight and gain it back i just gain it.... I think it is due to a hormone inbalence but until i can find a Dr. who will believe me when i say i dont over eat....it is pointless!

today I am re aranging dresser drawer! and I am still working on the closets in both rooms.... I cant reach the top part by myself so my tall hubby is GOING TO help me even if i havent informed him of this yet...lmao! I love him!

Closets are so nice to have clean!! I have the bedroom closet done but have to do the office one. I'll bring a bin up with me as I go up to sleep, to work on that tomorrow! I see the sun coming up, I think it means it's time for bed

Good Night! it is so strange, cos it is 11.30 in the morning here! So I have just cleaned my kitchen. Need to sort out my clean washing too!

Well it's 6:44am here, so just dawn

OK today we cleaned out the downstairs closet! That was really in need of a cleaning. We're going to go through the shoe pile and donate a bunch to charity, too.

Of course now that the downstairs living room was cleaner my boyfriend decided he wanted to do some recording work (he's in a band) so the room is chock full of recording gear now

Yes Lisa - we use this method with great success!

It's more rewarding too, isn't it?, to see one area which you know is done thoroughly!

Has anyone ever tried successfully or not to use a Rota? LOL

What's a rota? Like a measuring device?

We have actually made great progress since beginning this challenge, I am just so happy. I'm hoping that others are encouraged to take on even just one small area by reading this

We do have one "disaster room" left (well and the basement which is horrendous). We have a spare room which we call the "music room" which has his drums, my keyboard, and tons of other junk. You can't even walk in it. The main problem in there is the piles of posters which are meant for giveaways in this forum. Let me talk to my giveaway intern and get her working on those

In Yorkshire this is called 'Bottom Out' If you were working in service in the old days and your mistress told you to 'bottom out' a room you knew you would be in for some heavy work. Everything would be taken out of the room and cleaned, the room would be cleaned and scrubbed and everything would need to be put back again. That was done on a rota throughout the year so each room would be 'bottomed out' at least once in six months. That is why domestic servants from Yorkshire and Lancashire were highly sought after...they really knew how to clean.

Ah we *never* do that I'm lucky we get down to bare carpet in the entire room to steam clean it

One of my New Year's resolutions was to clean out my bedroom closet and I finally did get to it about 2 weeks ago. My husband and I have separate closets and mine always seemed so much more full of "stuff" than his-lol. It's amazing how much better you feel to have a clean and organized closet.

Now for the junk drawers in the kitchen! That stuff hasn't seen the light of day since we moved in here 3 years ago!

This weekend is a deep clean weekend. We do this 2-3 times a year. Going to go through all of the clothing, get rid of what is not worn, what is too stained, and too small.

Same thing is going to happen in the kitchen and kid's toy boxes. I should really say 'toy closet'.


Fay- Funny you mentioned that about 'Bottom Out', my great-grandmother used to refer to it as that. She was dutch and english, I wonder if that was more common in the 1800's outside of Yorkshire? She would have learned it from her parents, I reckon.

Well the next room I want to hit is that music room to at least do a first pass on it. I see my boyfriend already cleared a path to the drums somehow and I sent a message off to the intern about the posters. Now I can at least try to put away some of the clothes in there and get the cables back into their drawers. We are both huge computer geeks so we have an entire chest of drawers in there full of power cables, network cables, phone cables etc. But at some point I got frustrated looking for something and just dumped them all out on the floor Time to get them back into their little homes ...

We go through our clothes twice a year and get rid of a lot of stuff that way.

I'm currently cleaning out a small area of my house once or twice a week. Usually a small bookcase - which I did yesterday - or a section of my basement. It's amazing how much stuff I've accumulated in the 10 years I've lived in this house. My main motivation is knowing I'll be selling the house next year. I really don't want to pack up and move stuff I won't be using...

Well it could be...Those Yorkshire lassies got everywhere, they were so thorough with housework. I even heard they used to polish the coal before it was taken up to the fireplaces.

I know many Dutch are extremely house-proud too, not all of them though. A bit like England, there were some areas that you just did not go unless you had nowhere else. They were verminous. Sadly enough many of these areas are becoming rat-infested slums once again due to overcrowding and bad planning. Too many people all living in one house.

I wouldn't be surprised if your grandmother didn't learn the saying from a Yorkshire housekeeper or maid, because even lower middle class families had servants in her day. It definitely comes from the northern counties.

I would so like to have a housekeeper I would treat her very well!! But it is amazing how much economies have changed in modern times - hiring a person like that is just so expensive.

I got the kitchen table clean of stuff finally, progress!!

My office is still filled with TONS of piles of paper though. I am just inundated with things to sort through. I should get a set of bins and at least organize them into general categories to start with ...

I got some bins for my office and things are much more organized! There are still paper piles but now they're contained and much easier to work with.

I also got the basement slightly cleaned!! I really am making progress My next task will be to do a better job in the office, to get some of these paper piles smaller

LOL I'm looking back at 2/28 when I said the kitchen table was clean of stuff. It is now COVERED with stuff already!! How does this happen??

On the up side, the downstairs Bowflex area is fully cleaned out and the Bowflex is useable again. Hurrah!! And both upstairs and downstairs are Roomba-capable which is making a big difference in general cleanliess. The paper piles in the office are much more under control, my desk is pretty much clear, and I did get through most of the "cable pile" in the upstairs music room!

Things are definitely looking much more manageable each day

Is anybody else making progress?

I completely tore apart the bathroom today. It was way overdue for cleaning, and had gotten disorganized... again. There wasn't really any clutter to toss, but things had shifted and been left lying about until the counter, cabinet, and closet spaces were untidy and the space was not being well used. (In a tiny apartment like this, using every inch of storage to it's best potential matters greatly!)

So I hauled everything out to a folding table I'd set up in the living room, cleaned the room top to bottom, and put everything back in a neat, organized manner. I spent hours on it, working at an easy pace, being thorough with the cleaning, and putting some thought into the best arrangement of toiletries,cleaning supplies, and linens.

When I was done, not only had everything gone back into the room, but I had also opened up space in the linen closet to add a small laundry basket on the bottom. So we'll have no more little piles of clothes in the floor waiting to be taken to the bedroom baskets. A little mess prevention was a nice little bonus to gaining a shiny, organized bathroom.

Wow that is great!! So you gained space! Talk about a great bonus

My task for today is to get the kitchen table clean ... again ...

Update - Kitchen table is clean!!

Today is my catch up day. I need to do the bathroom, so that is going to get everything hauled out, then soaking the whole shapow with vinegar.

I did empty out some trash bins today so that was good. And the Roombas are running daily which is also good. Now I have to get the kitchen table clean (again) - but the basement is doing well and so is my office! So there is progress

I'm proud to report that the kitchen table is STILL clean. Here was my secret. We have a new table and I've kept a tablecloth on it because I was paranoid about scratching it. Really, we've had it like 5 months and never used it "bare" because I didn't want to hurt it. Eventually when my dad was over for dinner two nights ago I said, this is silly, if it gets scratched a little we'll live with it. So we ate on placemats and it really looks nice.

So I left it that way. Now we won't put anything on it because we don't want to hurt it - and it looks nice. So if I leave it like this, maybe it'll stay clean!!

In other news, I set up a three-shelf unit by Bob's dart area and got the whole dart area all organized and cleaned up. I did a bunch of other cleaning in the basement (including steam cleaning the carpet, mentioned elsewhere). And I got some areas of the kitchen cleaned up. So I'm making real progress!!

I clean off my kitchen table and lo and behold its full of this and that. all my stuff, my laptop n all kinda stuff. its only me n my grandson no one ever eats at the kitchen table. but i entertain my friend in the kitchen thats where we all sit around the table. clutter n all.

Thats great Lisa keep up the good work

Tomorrow is going to be my "Fighting the Paper Monster" day. My to-be-shredded pile is WAY out of hand, I have a stack of paid bills waiting to be sorted into files or the paper shredder. I also have a stack of miscellaneous paper that needs to go away. All of this (and more!) in on a little 3 shelf bookcase sitting beside my desk. I replaced my desk recently, but never got around to dealing with the "I have nowhere else to put it" items on the small bookcase. And the stacks grew as I procrastinated.

My goal is to put away, throw away, and shred tomorrow until that bookcase is clear. Then it's going to be moved AWAY from my desk, forcing me to keep up with my filing. (I bought this desk in part because it puts me in a "no where to put it but where it belongs" situation with my paper clutter. But the presence of an extra bookcase has been my crutch since that purchase.)

I'll let you know how it goes!

I organized a cart file I got for homeschooling and now have a few years worth of newsletters to go thru and cut out any relevant articles.

I keep articles from mags in folders - like pictures of hair styles or rooms I like that are designed and autism stories, unless it is a cover story and I save the whole mag.

Wow Myrabeth that is a GREAT aim. My paper pile is out of control and has taken over literally the entire floor of my office. I need to get a shelf system and organize the paper and really shred most of it I imagine.

Bonnie - that is awesome news, that you have gotten things under control! Another thought is to scan in the hairstyles and to create one webpage that shows them all, that way you can scan them all at an instant and even print them out for a stylist, but you don't have to take up "paper room" with them. That is what I do with all images now.

In my case most of the paper I have are receipts from things, I save every receipt for anything I do, for tax reasons. So they all have to be filed properly.

I'm going to start a separate thread on this.

OK I had slacked off and the house got to be a mess again. Go figure. I am starting anew with resolve. I am going to REALLY gather up all excess stuff to donate to charity, so there simply is less stuff to be messy.

I just spent several hours on the bedroom and it is CLEAN. Vacuumed, steam cleaned, done. Hurrah!! I took two boxes of stuff out to donate to charity. This will help it stay clean going forward.

What one room can you tackle?

Next I am going to do the upstairs bathroom! That hopefully should be relatively easy ...

I think it will take me a year to shred all my "to be done shredding" anyone have a better idea? I keep thinking I could just burn it in the grill, but that is not very environmentally friendly.

Instead of a room, I think I will tackle my desk/office area.... it'll take me a week. I will do one draw and one shelf a day.

I really would put the shredder by the couch and work on it in bursts. That way every day you make progress. I bet you could be done in a few weeks!

One drawer a day sounds awesome!!

Did you know you can only run a shredder for 10 minutes at a time? lol I have put my shreader by the trash though. This way I haven't added TO the pile for some time now. Most of my shreading is literally years old. Sad to say.

I have a desktop shredder and I do keep a box of to-be-shredded stuff. I do a bit here and there when i need to get up and take a little break.

Shred! Shred now! Take it one step at a time!

My bedroom and bathroom have stayed clean, hurrah! Today we bought some more plastic storage bins and I did hours of work on the kitchen. The floor was actually clear enough to have Scooba run for a while!

We also got a new shelf stand to put my dance dance revolution tv on - that's in the basement. So while we were reorganizing the basement we pulled out some wood panels which then went in the attic to provide more storage space up there. So we made a lot of progress! I am really encouraged with how clean the kitchen got - although it's only about half done. The floors are now clear but the counters are covered with stuff

I'm making progress on the kitchen! The center island is clean, and the little table next to it too!

And Bob is down getting the motorcycle working!! Yeah!

Is anybody else cleaning up just one room or area?

I decided to go through my kitchen cabinets and get rid of old food as well as remove things that were taking up space that should go else where. I discovered a box of crackers that had been in there for at least 3 years. So that got trashed. And I had glass jars galore that I don't know what I was saving them all for. So I put them all in the recycle bin. Then I discovered old glassware that I decided should go to the attic because it is never used. But when I got to the attic I found an even bigger project. My Lord. What a mess up there! I need to box things up there and donate boxes to Good Will. It's time.

P.S. I actually wrote a whole article called Creative Clutter Clearing, but figured it wasn't related to creativity so never posted it on the Creativity site, but it was loaded with cleaning tips.

Summer cleaning is great! Often charities will drive right to your house and pick up things. In our area the BigBrothers do that. So all you have to do is bring those boxes out of the attic, give them a once-over, then put them at the end of your driveway. Problem solved!

Really my vote is if something is really never used, it should go to charity so that someone else can adore it and use it daily as their favorite item You're sharing the wealth!

I really want to get our "music room" functional again - the one with my piano keyboard and Bob's drums in it. It is always full of junk and I can't ever play the piano! The problem is it has 8 bags of "fluffy plastic" (for packing) in it. As if we'll ever need that much, but I can't bring myself to throw away packing materials. Really what I should do is find things to sell or ship to friends that need packing material and use it all up

Plus there are like 15 posters lying in the middle of the floor that need to be given away in these forum contests. You all should chime in on those contests to win one, so I can get my floor space back! Remember, editors can enter and win!

Lisa with shipping materials it's good to make a free or low cost post on craigslist. Someone could use them if yo don't want em, and then you are also recycling.

Well we do ship a ton of things between origami and everything else we do, so I imagine it'll be useful sometime. I have to ramp up our sending-out efforts to get them in use

I cleaned the downstairs bathroom!! Three rooms are clean now!! There are "pending projects" in both bathrooms but those are Bob's responsibility. We have a fan to put in the upstairs one and a new toilet to put in the downstairs one. Now I have to encourage him to get those done. We've had those items for over a year

Plus I steam cleaned the upstairs hallway!! Progress!!

Our Scooba is still out of commission. I got a new charger for it but it still won't work. Now I have ordered a new battery and am waiting for it to come in!

Still no Scooba battery. Now the Roomba upstairs had its battery die. Sheesh! Still, I have 3 clean rooms and a clean upstairs hallway. James is coming over so now I have to spend an hour cleaning out his room. When he's gone it fills up with all my origami supplies, so I have to stuff them all back into the closet ...

OK I got the scooba running! The kitchen floor is clean!! The kitchen itself is half clean - I have the table and one counter left to declutter. I really feel like progress is being made here!!

James' room is clean too - I got all the origami supplies away!!