I'm Cured, Let's Party!

I'm done. There is almost nothing left that could possibly be cleaned (Ok, so I never got around to the broom closet...another day) My floors are gleaming. Counter tops sparkle. Everything is organized to within an inch of its life. I am terrified to cook anything because I am such a sloppy cook and I want it to remain this pristine for ever and ever. Except that it will be mostly destroyed by tomorrow morning. But for a good cause. 

My surprise guest is due to arrive this afternoon, when she does I will promptly GTFO of work! (Shes not here to surprise me btw)

I am SO ready for this party. I think. I feel like I am. Though I am sure I will have forgotten something important. I feel like I forgot to invite someone too... though I can't figure out who. 


Anyway, here's some stuff I did
 Tidy, but with a table top in the way

Table top gone and finished cleaning, even found a place for a few extra flowers. Landing strip in order with some mail sorted out.

Everything dusted and straightened up.

More flowers in the bedroom. New sheets on the bed.

Carafes came!
Also found a new basket from Superstore 

Carafes via special delivery from Rayna, thanks again btw ;) (From CB2, not from her store, but check out her jewelry and accessories shop nolxbelslifestyle.com!) R thinks it's a little ridiculous but I think it looks so much nicer than the big plastic bottle. 

She snuck in a little birthday gift for me too! She knows me so well. Skull lip stuff. So awesome

And this sweet card! Love it

I made a banner for the photobooth. I still have to put up the backdrop, but figured I would wait until last minute so I could still have access to the pantry in the mean time. I think it turned out pretty well. I bought the glitter paper from DollarTree

The Table just waiting to be filled with all sorts of cheese and bacon!  
If I am not too busy, I will try and remember to take some shots of all the food, because it's usually a pretty good spread. I even made a batch of spankopita last night!

 Redbull fridge is stuffed to the max with beers and Rebulls!

Drink station set up! Some more pretty flowers!

 Cheers everyone!!!

The Cure.... Continued

I'm sort of ahead of the game on a few things and behind in others :)

According to the cure, I should be spending my weekend deep cleaning the bathroom. But thankfully I already did this in stages near the end of December. All I have left is to wash the shower curtain and "display" towels. They are never used, but are a bit dusty. I had washed all the walls and baseboards, and even the ceiling got wiped down. I cleaned and purged the bathroom cabinet and drawers. It was very satisfying!

I have a dentist appointment today, and I MUST remember to refuse anymore freaking toothbrushes, toothpaste or dental floss. Can you see how many we have? 12 things of floss. TWELVE! There are at LEAST 9 mini tubes of toothpaste in there. And a half a dozen toothbrushes. I like to have a FEW of these things on hand in case of guests or travel and such. But I think I have too many. I am going to try and pawn some off on company next weekend :) 

Before - Not bad!

And after, a few things gone and a bit better organized.

Over the last week I haven't done as much as I had hoped to but am still making very decent progress.

I did a small portion of the Living room task, because currently there is a huge table top in the way of the shelves and it is supposed to be moved this evening. So I hope to be able to finish that part up tonight. I did manage to declutter a little bit. I moved a few knickknacks to other locations or to a box in the basement.

Before

And After!

The plan for the table top is to eventually cut it down and turn it into shelves for the kitchen. They will be awesome, just you wait!

Dust Bunnies Banished from the Bedroom!!

Weekend two of Apartment Therapy's January Cure and I didn't get nearly as far as I had hoped.

A few weeks ago I spent the day cleaning the mattress (peroxide and baking soda and a toothbrush and most of the grody stains were gone!!) And I also washed all the pillows (more peroxide!) So I had a tiny head start on the bedroom situation. Friday I managed to clean everything else but the sheets. I didn't go crazy under the bed. There isn't a whole lot of room to move it aside but I did get under with the vacuum a bit. I dusted everything from top to bottom. Turned all R's hangers around backwards and organized the bed linen on the top shelf of his closet.

Saturday I had to work job number two and ended up catching a cold and woke up pretty miserable Sunday almost afternoon. Zero energy but I still manged to tidy my room and tackle a pile of towels that needed be folded weeks ago.

Today I left work at noon, because I couldn't breathe and didn't have any drugs. I advise against shopping while sick AND hungry because I ended up with some bad bad things. Ooops.

Anyway, I took some pictures of the bedroom before and after :)

 A bit disheveled, but not terrible

R's dresser. 

 My end table. I swear it didn't look that dusty until I turned the lights up!

View of R's closet - We didn't bother putting any closet doors back up either. Eventually we're going to combine some hall and closet space into our bedroom to enlarge it and then "my" room will be turned into a kick ass walk in closet. 

 Freshly washed comforter, vacuumed curtains, dusted alllll the things

 

 My end table. Much better. Found a box that fits on the shelf to hold my extra blanket. It's a bit too big, but it was something I had handy.

 

 Much better!

Hangers turned around, laundry put away, extra junk from the closet gone (ahem... to the table in the kitchen :( ... working on it) 

Skylines by local JPH photography 

Cured Kitchen

I accidentally deleted a bunch of these photos. sorry!





Phew. That was quite the effort but I hauled ass and have the spiffiest kitchen to prove it. Let's see the madness!

See this post for all the exterior cleaning I had done a few weeks ago. 

I started with the junk drawer. I forgot to take a picture before I dumped it all out. But here are the contents! Ready for sorting. In here I discovered a fancy drill bit that R was happy to see. Lots of hooks and hair elastics. A video store card that was my dads from probably 25 years ago

Below is the drawer with all its organizers in it. All these are all containers I found throughout the house. Nothing was purchased for this organizational cleaning frenzy.

I then moved on to my utensils. I really do love kitchen things and end up getting many as gifts. No complaints though, I love them, just maybe too much. I have quite a few spatulas and whisks, but I am not willing to get rid of many of those, I use them all so much.

I did manage to purge a few things. I also found a nice little pairing knife that I got from my mom, in the back of a drawer that I hadn't used in forever. So I sharpened it up and oiled the handle. These are all the things I don't use, see I'm down one spatula and two whisks even!

Annnnd since I had the oil out I had to oil the rest of the wood things.

Then I decided to pull nearly everything out of the cabinets and start sorting and cleaning and purging. Man oh man that felt good. I got rid of a big pile of containers I haven't used in years. I'll have lots for the donation pile come spring for sure.

The contents of most of my cupboards and drawers! I keep the plastic containers in those two damask containers. Lids in one, containers in the other. It works pretty well, as long as I have plenty of containers in use elsewhere, otherwise it overflows!

Then I did under the sink. Pulled it all out and cleaned and got rid of all the bottles with a teaspoon left in each, or that were empty. Why I was keeping them I have no idea.

I had used Ikea place mats as shelf liners when we moved in. I only had four :(They don't have these ones anymore.

I put it all back together and rearranged a few things, so you wanna take a peek inside my tidy drawers??? ;)

Above is my hand mixer, mandolin, Kitchen Aid Immersion blender cup and chopper. Ikea cheese grater/container and my Fasta Pasta. My mom gave me the Fasta Pasta some years ago from Christmas and I LOVE IT. Use it all the time. Probably too much since I don't need to eat as much pasta as I do. Whatever. CARBS!

 
Below is the glass containers that I use for lunches and some leftovers. The square ones are from Ikea and the round ones are Anchor. They are now right next to the stove and very convenient.

The overflow utensil drawer! Stuff that I don't use as often and doesn't fit in the pot on the counter. 

Measuring tools and some other stuff. When you count calories, like I was, having lots of measuring tools is super important. I love the sets of stainless cups from Lee Valley. Digital thermometer, another cheese grater (Yes we have 3 graters that live in 3 different locations, based on frequency of use! Plus a micro-plane in the drawer above)

Knives. So many knives. I have a decent chefs knife that I picked up on sale for 40 bucks from Superstore one day and although it has a slight dent in the blade, that I am slowly sharpening away, it works well. We got the colorful set for Christmas from R's grandparents, and they are bright and colorful and having the covers make them handy to take camping or to friends houses who have questionable cutting devices. I have a collection of serrated "commercial" knives that I acquired while working for a sandwich shop many years ago. They are still sharp and are the best best things for slicing tomatoes.

Pretty self explanatory ;)

Can't ever have too many dish towels. One day when I'm rich, I will have a drawer of totally matching ones! It will be awesome.

Cutlery, bag clips and bottle openers. The containers I found at Superstore fit totally perfectly width-wise but were a tad short in the back, so I crammed some cardboard in the back to keep them from sliding around when I have to slam the old and shitty drawer shut!

 

More junk drawer, because it doesn't look like a junk drawer at all!

 And now inside my cabinets!!

 Pots and pans. I kept my original pressure cooker after I got my instant pot, just for the fact that it's a big ass pot. And sometimes you need a few big ass pots. Also, the fourth burner pot that I bought on a whim, and don't really use all that much, but am not quite willing to part with it yet. And our indoor grill.

Plastic things and an ice cream maker.

Under the sea.... sink.

Baking things, Salad spinner and party bowls. Gravy separator.

 Tada! Organized, purged and clean. Loving it... Now just to KEEP it this way! Hahahahaha yeah right...