SPRING CLEAN YOUR HOME - AND YOUR HEAD

There’s nothing like spring to motivate us to clean up our act on the domestic front. But why not use the down time provided by human winter social hibernation to get in early and be Spring-prepared. Depending on the state of your domestic affairs, this will either seem like a very doable weekend activity or a task of monumental (and non-achievable) proportions. Either way, you can nail this. No matter how daunting, you can stay positive by thinking in baby steps.

However if you feel like tackling this head on, get out your pen and paper and do a home-wide reconnaissance. Go from room to room, and take note of dusty shelves, desktops etc; grimy marks on walls, doors and cupboards; any mould on walls and ceilings; cluttered drawers, wardrobes and cupboards that need tidying; old dusty, fraying cushions and any sheets or towels that need replacing. Don’t forget to look up high if you want to do an excellent job of this – think tops of doorframes and paintings, ceiling smears and for heaven’s sake, don’t miss the upper areas of your kitchen. Seems like that’s taking it too far, just wait till you get up there and see the s*&t on top of the cupboards and range hood. You’ll want it gone, believe me. And don’t forget windows… clean windows make your house look so much better and have the added benefit of letting in more light.

Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed? Don’t fret, once you actually start to tick off this list, you will find that not only does your house begin to feel miraculously cleaner and clearer, but so does your head. So just tackle what you can, when you can. If you don’t like to work alone, get help. Enlist the help of a friend by trading a yummy home cooked dinner for some elbow grease. Pump up the music and think of it as a workout. It’s amazing how much muscle you can build with hard labour around the house. Finally have a reward in mind for the day you have your house spick and span again.

Maybe an hour massage, movie and dinner, delux mani-pedi – or for those with higher expectations and a bigger budget – a day spa or weekend away. Whatever it is, after your hard work you’ll be able to look forward to some R&R and then return to your pristine home to greet Spring head on.
PS If you can afford it, have your carpet steam cleaned and if you live high up, have professional cleaners come and clean the outside of your windows. You won’t believe the difference.

Get your kitchen’s act together

Part 1: Out with the old, chipped and ugly

Aspire to acquire Kitchen Heaven...

Whether renting or living in your own property, so many of us end up with kitchens that look like a junk/food bomb hybrid has gone off. Maybe it’s extra appliances that seemed like a good idea at the time but now get used bi-annually if lucky (in my case that milk frother, mini blender I’m lucky to fit half a banana in or the jaffle-squashed-sandwich-thingie that’s big enough to land a small helicopter on.) None of them fit in the cupboards (which are already overflowing with way too many saucepans, an army of coffee and teacups and mismatched glasses, hideous wedding gift crockery that you can’t give away in case they visit – not to mention all the non-perishable food, so much of it past its use-by date.) So these useless appliances get relegated to the benchtop along with the appliances you actually use, the oils, seasonings, obligatory fruit bowl, clashing decorative elements, piles of paper comprising of bills, kids pictures, takeaway food flyers, etc etc. Really – I can’t be the only one who needs a kitchen makeover.

Do you ever use this?

Chipped mugs and crockery must go!

Someone wise once said “A clean, tidy home creates a peaceful mind”. Someone else said “A clean house is a wasted life”, but we’ll chose not to focus on that for the purposes of this exercise. So, think de-clutter and clean, clear surfaces. Work from the anti-hoarding doctrine of if it hasn’t been used for a while get rid of it. Don’t be precious and sentimental either – it’ll get you nowhere. Root out all that chipped crockery, those ugly mugs (husbands excepted), throw out all the takeaway flyers along with the past-use-by packets and jars. Anything that is salvageable can be re-homed to a charity or if your place is bad enough, you may even have enough stuff to have a garage sale (one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.) 

Half dead plants, ugly plants, tragic holiday mementos, horrid ceramic oil vessels oh, and don’t get me started on fridge magnets - they all need to go.

If you can't save it, bin it!

Plants should be pleasing on the eye

So get busy and keep watching for our next installment in which we will show you how to make your kitchen the gorgeous place it was born to be.