Casa de Surely Declutter

Today I was inspired by A Beach Cottage's Declutter Mission and decided to attack my kitchen. I've been really irked lately with all the knick-knacks and general clutter taking up room in my house and so I decided to actually do something about it.

Having read possibly hundreds of blogs about de-cluttering, I knew it was important to do it systematically, and one things at a time. So I got my helper (Other Half, grumbling but present) and we did the cupboards clockwise from the left, working our way around.

Boy, was it a bigger job than I thought! Ended up not even touching the pantry because I just couldn't face it after doing one cupboard and the drawers! I cleaned as I went. How do the inside of cupboard doors get so much crud on them?

My helper disappeared about halfway through but returned later to help me lift out the heavy stacks of crockery. The neighbour dropped by near the end, so I chatted to her whilst doing the last cupboard. Tried to offload a stack of old plastic containers and crap onto her, but she only took the old pie-maker. I told her it's all going to the charity shop tomorrow unless she changes her mind!

Before: This is the bakeware and platters cupboard. Yes that's a crockpot crammed in there.

The Tupperware cupboard. Nightmare.

The "miscellaneous" drawer.

Look! I finally did something that I saw on Pinterest!

Interesting find: a pair of stoneware containers. Absolutely no marks, both pristine condition. The square one could be a butter dish but is slightly too large. 

Lovely Anchor Hosking casserole dish.

Depression glass? Unsure. Nice amber candy dish though.

Jackpot - Pyrex! A lot of this stuff I didn't even know I had because we inherited the house contents from C's parents when they moved out. I've never delved the depths of some of these cupboards despite living here for four years.

This is about half the Tupperware cupboard when I pulled it all out. The other half is on the kitchen bench. C saw it and promptly declared the mess "effing ridiculous".

I'm calling this the Find of the Day: A Wedgewood "Pennine" sugar bowl. Just lovely.

And the finished product - the now-neat Tupperware cupboard. Let's see how long it stays that way, shall we? (Four plastic bags filled with non-Tupperware containers we never use. Ones with lids will be going to Lifeline tomorrow).

The bakeware and platters cupboard. Sorry for the poor quality, just took with my phone, no natural light!

The "miscellaneous" drawer. Now with containers for things.

Also going to charity: A George Foreman grill, no less than 3 quiche dishes and a stack of microwave cookware that I never use. SO CLEANSING.

So today was productive, but exhausting. Join in the fun yourself or search the #bcdeclutter hashtag on Twitter or Instagram to see other's efforts!

Housework and Loathing in the burbs

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This morning I am in a frenzy of cleaning. Why? Because my future in-laws are coming to stay for a few days.

I know, I know. It's silly. Why should I care what they think of my housekeeping skills (or lack thereof)? But I just DO. C's mother keeps an immaculate house, and I just want the place to look presentable. Last time she cleaned the oven while I was at work, then showed me proudly when I got home, proclaiming it to have been "so filthy!". You can imagine how that made me feel. The funny thing is - I genuinely don't think she did/said that to make me feel bad. She is just happy to be helping!

At the moment, the house looks like a brothel. Without the whores, obviously. Probably fewer bedsheets to wash too. Why is it that I can have the place looking fairly decent on a Sunday night, but by Friday I'm staring at piles of socks on the lounge room floor, junk mail scattered everywhere and dirty dishes piled so high in the sink I can't even fill up the kettle?

I know why. It's because what little "maintenance" cleaning I do during the week can't keep up with our level of untidyness. Tell you what though, even though C is pretty good, it wouldn't kill him to put his clothes in the laundry basket every now and again, would it?

So this afternoon I'm going to reward myself for a hard morning of cleaning showers, vacuuming, dusting and mopping. Not sure how yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something involving either chocolate or alcohol! Possibly both.

(By the way, the makers of those Viva shower cleaning wipes will be pleased to know I bought some after seeing not one but TWO bloggers review them. Blog PR works, folks!)

On housework

In my opinion, the division of labour in our household is in no way even. In my boyfriend's mind however, his ability to do the heavy lifting more than makes up for the mundane stuff he just doesn't do.

Sometimes we have a garbage standoff. I'm sure most of you are familiar with this little game - it's those times when you seem to be having a competition as to who can stuff the most rubbish into the kitchen bin. And when it's full, who can balance MORE crap on top. It's a game that requires nerves of steel and a deficient olfactory system - the bin becomes smellier and grosser each day as each person waits for the other to break and actually take it out.

A big embarrassed to report, that in our house, my boyfriend usually breaks first. But it takes at least 5 days. Now that's gross.

That said, he does do the things I hate: scrubbing the loo, getting the wheelie bins in. Occasionally he even vacuums and does washing!

And still our home remains a mess most of the time. I think this is the result of a number of factors - we're both low-level hoarders, and he has a tendency to just leave things where they fall eg. shoes, socks, magazines, clothes, books, junk mail... And then there's my tendency to just stop giving a shit about how the house looks during the week when I'm exhausted from work. So a little selective blindness goes on in our household for a large portion of the time.

I read an article somewhere that the key to domestic happiness and keeping your house clean is to do a little big each day, and not save it all up for the weekend. I'm still to master that skill!