Remodeled, organized and cleaned; what more could you want? How about sustained organization and cleanliness?

Just the daily routines of life can throw our homes into a cycle of disarray. The hectic schedules that we keep seem to give us license to drop, throw and leave our stuff all over the house. It is not until we can open the door to the house or someone trips and falls over a pile of junk, do we sit up and take notice that something has to be done about the clutter and mess.

Well, you have taken major steps towards seizing control of the situation by remodeling what needed to be changed, organizing the new and existing spaces and vowing to clean on a daily basis so that you don’t get overwhelmed by the cleaning monster.

Here are a few easy steps to realizing the dream of an uncluttered and clean environment in your home.

1. Establish Boundaries – In a home there are private spaces and public spaces. Review the difference between the two with your family. In doing this, you can hold each other accountable for private things being left in public places. This should help in ridding the Living Room of junior’s shoes and socks, book bags and backpacks should have a designated area, not on the Kitchen floor, coats should be hung in the closet, not thrown over the Dining Room chairs. Rules like, “if it is yours, it should be in your room,” will help to clarify where things belong and keep you from being the bad guy when it comes to straightening up the house.
2. Create Spaces – If you constantly are hearing, “I don’t know where it goes,” perhaps it is time to create specific spaces so that everyone knows where things belong. This is not a new concept. Almost everyone knows that if you say, “put the lawn mower away”; it would go in either the Garage or the Shed. Not too hard. It should be the same throughout the house. If something looks out of place, it probably is and you should be able to identify the owner and then it should find its proper place.
3. Set an Example – How easy is it to throw your keys and the mail on the island when you walk through the Kitchen? Do you ever drop your purse just inside the door to free up a hand to do something else, and never get back to pick it up? Well, just so you know, there are eyes watching your every move. You are setting precedence with your every action. Even if you have a good reason for leaving your things out, you need to lead by example and clean up after yourself. If they see you doing it, it will encourage everyone else to take responsibility for their things.

So remember, establish boundaries, public and private spaces and things; create spaces, a place for everything and everything has a place; and most of all set an example or simply stated: Practice what you preach!

Happy Remodeling!

Next Time…Move to the Outside

Q&A&C – Questions and Answers and Comments are expected and welcomed.

YOUR STORY – Tell us about your remodeling experiences, good or bad. We all have had them and perhaps you can help someone else have a great remodeling experience or avoid the issues that you encountered. Remember…keep it clean and civil or we can’t publish it.

 Now that you have remodeled and/or organized your space, here are some ways to keep it neat and tidy. You don’t need to spend all day being bogged down with cleaning chores. All it takes is about 20 minutes a day!

Kitchen (4 ½ minutes daily)

Always start with the sink. “Keep it empty and shining,” says Marla Cilley, author of Sink Reflections (Bantam, $15) and creator of www.FlyLady.net, a housekeeping Web site. A sparkling sink becomes your Kitchen’s benchmark for hygiene and tidiness, inspiring you to load the dishwasher immediately and keep counters, refrigerator doors, and the stovetop spick-and-span, too.

• Wipe down the sink after doing the dishes or loading the dishwasher (30 seconds).
• Wipe down the stove top (1 minute).
• Wipe down the counters (1 minute).
• Sweep, Swiffer®, or mop the floor (2 minutes).

Bathroom (2 minutes daily)
Make cleaning the sink as routine as washing your hands. But don’t stop there. Get the most out of your pre-moistened wipe by using it to clean around the edges of the tub and then the toilet before tossing it.

• Wipe out the sink (30 seconds).
• Wipe the toilet seat and rim (15 seconds).
• Swoosh the toilet bowl with a brush (15 seconds).
• Wipe the mirror and faucet (15 seconds).
• Squeegee the shower door (30 seconds).
• Spray the entire shower and the curtain liner with shower mist after every use (15 seconds).

 Bedroom (6 ½ minutes daily)
Make your bed right before or after your morning shower. A neat bed will inspire you to deal with other messes immediately. Although smoothing sheets and plumping pillows might not seen like a high priority as you’re rushing to work, the payoff comes at the end of the day, when you slip back under the unruffled covers.

• Make the bed (2 minutes).
• Fold or hang clothing and put away jewelry (4 minutes).
• Straighten out the night-table surface (30 seconds).

 Family Room, Living Room, Foyer (6 minutes daily)
Start with the sofa – as long as it’s in disarray, your living room will never look tidy. Once you’ve fluffed the pillows and folded the throws, you’re halfway home. If you pop in a CD while you dust, you should be able cover the whole room by the end of the third track.

• Pick up crumbs and dust bunnies with a handheld vacuum (2 minutes).
• Fluff the cushions and fold throws after use (1 minute).
• Wipe tabletops and spot-clean cabinets when you see fingerprints (1 minute).
• Straighten coffee-table books and magazines, recycle unwanted issues, put away CDs and videos (2 minutes).

Walla! Taking these 20 minutes daily will make your regular cleaning day go so much quicker, you might even have time for that afternoon tea, walk or even finish that book you started in 2006.

Happy Remodeling!

Next Time…Practice What You Preach

Q&A&C – Questions and Answers and Comments are expected and welcomed.

YOUR STORY – Tell us about your remodeling experiences, good or bad. We all have had them and perhaps you can help someone else have a great remodeling experience or avoid the issues that you encountered. Remember…keep it clean and civil or we can’t publish it.

Organizing is a great thing to do. However, what most of us do is express grief over the way a room or space looks and we often hate the way it makes us feel, but we don’t have a real plan of action to make it better.  So, we fizzle out in our organizational effort. We lose focus because we didn’t have a plan. 

Use this entry as a wake-up call; a call to prepare a plan of action. Whether it is the un-cluttering your entire home or an all out single room remodel, we hope that this will provide the organizing solution you’ve been dreaming of. 

Creating Organized Spaces Once and For All

1. Visualize – How do you want your space to look?  How do you want things to work for you?  What will you need to do to clear out the area?  Visualize where items could be housed.  Write down notes of what your ideal space looks like…What color is it, how does your ideal space serve you?  Visualize in your mind how a new look can best serve you and your family.  Make notes of what isn’t quite right about it too so that you can know where to tweak as you go and what issues to address in the process. 
2. Inventory – What will you keep?  What do you see yourself using?  Get 3 boxes for keeping, donating, and disposing.  What items will work in your cleared space or newly created space? 
3. Eliminate – Some things are really just unnecessary.  Consider the benefits of simplifying.  Having only what is useful and what you love, will minimize the occurrences of having to clean, maintain things that you feel lukewarm about anyway. 
4. Create - Make homes for all remaining items.  Use baskets, boxes, shelves, wire baskets, or whatever items you already have that can be repurposed into a place to restore items. 
5. Order – Put items away in a way that creates an order for you.  That may be visual with baskets, paper on cork boards, pretty boxes, containers, or that may be in the form of putting items in cabinets, armoires, closets…places that hide, but can still be orderly.  Place items that are close to where you will be working with them. 
6. Identify – Take note of what is working about your arrangement.  When things start to back up and lose their purpose, notice why “…too much stuff, not enough of an effective system to keep things running smooth.”  Once you can identify how that pattern originated, ask yourself what you can do to create a smoother pattern. 

Even in a newly organized space, sometimes there are blips.  If you’re asking yourself, “how did things get this way again…” and you previously created a remodeled space, rework your plan and be willing to simplify, purge, and containerize to keep that area in order. 

Happy Remodeling!

Next Time…Cleaning Tips

Q&A&C – Questions and Answers and Comments are expected and welcomed.

YOUR STORY – Tell us about your remodeling experiences, good or bad. We all have had them and perhaps you can help someone else have a great remodeling experience or avoid the issues that you encountered. Remember…keep it clean and civil or we can’t publish it.