CLEAN – The Floors
I like to clean my floors on a Friday so it’s clean for the weekend when the family are home and visitors popping over. I then give it a quick vacuum on Monday morning as it’s always filthy and some evenings I use a Stickvac to pick up dinner that has fallen on the floor.
Having a stickvac on hand makes cleaning really quick and easily, I have just recently purchased a Hoover Air Stick Pro, which I have found really handy for quick cleans, has a turbo head to give the carpets a good clean (and pick up cat hair) and has extra attachments for those high hard to reach places. Ultimately I just love it for the quick clean up under the kitchen bench.
Cleaning task
Today’s cleaning task is to do the following to your floors:
[wlchecklist name=’CleanDay5′]
If you are trying to watch your pennies, you may notice how quickly cleaning products can eat into your budget. With reusable supplies and few common household ingredients, you can effectively clean your home AND save money! Homemade floor cleaner would have to be one of the simplest DIY cleaning recipes. It’s important to keep your floors clean with people walking from inside to out, babies or pets crawling around or having the doors and windows open to let in the fresh air. These can all spread dust particles and dirt throughout the house.
I have 2 effective DIY recipes for cleaning floors, depending on your flooring, find my recipes here.
I get asked regularly what is my favourite mop. It’s Vileda, I have been using it for over 10 years and rave to anybody that listens about it. Ultimately I just love the effortless glide over the floors compared to the old ones I used to use. I reviewed their new Vileda UltraMax Easy Twist Mop on the blog recently, read review here.
Read more: How regularly you need to clean the floors.
Shoes or no shoes indoors?
This has been a controversial topic on my blog before, it’s each to their own in your own home with pro’s and con’s for both sides. However, I prefer that visitors leave their shoes at the door when coming into our house. I don’t like dirt from the bottom of shoes being walked into the house and on the carpets (ours are cream and show dirt really easily), it’s my personal preference as I don’t have the time to be continually cleaning my floors. I also make sure the kids wear shoes (thongs) outside protecting their feet from bindi’s in the grass but also so they don’t bring dirt from their feet onto the carpets.
I place a little sign at the front door, letting visitors know to kindly remove their shoes.
Sign is available in my shop. Use coupon code 20daysshoes to get 50% off at checkout
Click here to download
DECLUTTER – Out of date food
Look through your pantry (especially your dried herbs and spices) and dispose of all food out of date.
Add food close to use by date to next weeks meal plan.
Read more: How to organise your spices.
[wlchecklist name=’DeclutterDay5′]
ORGANISE – Pantry
Today’s organise task is to organise the pantry. However, I don’t want you to remove everything from your pantry as this can be a big job (please only do so if you have the time). Instead, today let’s spend time tidying and reorganising to make it more manageable.
Below are images from my new pantry, it’s a walk in, which appears to be the new thing in new homes these days.
The top shelves stores large plasticware (such as dip serving dishes, large tupperware), I hide away rarely used items such as disposable plates and cutlery in the white baskets (from Kmart), and extra products I purchase when they are on special. On the floor are some plastic drawers from Ikea, I keep muffin paper cases, plastic bags, whole packets of nuts (I buy extra when I see them on special, once open they go in the containers mentioned below), zip lock bags etc.
My favourite part of the pantry would be my new Ikea 365+ Plastic Food Containers. I use them for all my nuts, baking chocolate and dried fruit. They have a flip lid to for easy access. I am yet to label them all, just trying to find the right solution as I wasn’t happy with what I started doing.
I still continue to use my Tuppererware containers, which I have had for a good 8+ years, I can’t fault their quality and I really like the shapes of these ones below, perfect to hold biscuits, crackers, rice cakes etc for kids lunchboxes.
On the left of the top shelf shown below i have two plastic baskets, one with muesli bars and the other with potato chips. I make my kids healthy lunchboxes, but do allow them treats like this every now and then. Plastic stackable turntable is great for all my different cooking essences etc.
Plastic stackable turntable is also great for spices. I actually prefer this than the tiered shelf (available from Kmart or Howards Storage World) next to it, as I am so short I can’t see the names on the spices behind.
I keep my oils in these large plastic tubs from Kmart, makes it easier to divide my sauces and spices keeping it tidy, but also easier to wipe and clean up any spills.
I keep our recycling on the floor in the pantry in a plastic storage tub, which is easy to wash out if it gets sticky.
You will find some great ideas in this post where I helped a reader create an organised pantry on a budget
[wlchecklist name=’OrganiseDay5′]
Plus, more great ideas on pantry organising:
- A guide to Tupperware Modular Mate sizes for an organised pantry
- More inspiring pantry ideas
- Clear the clutter from your fridge, details of how I have made this board
- Before and After of how reader Victoria organised her spices
- 5 tips for a healthier pantry
- You will find a complete post here, including video of the storage I used for my old pantry
- What to do with open packets in the pantry
NEW HABIT – Tidy the kitchen bench
Immediately put rubbish in the bin
Once something is rubbish or ready to be recycled put it straight into the bin, then and there, not later because later sometimes never comes and this is how a pile accumulates and gets out of control. Be it paper on your office desk (create a recycling bin close by), tags from new clothing left on your dresser, lolly wrappers left on the bench, food on dirty dishes should be scrapped straight into the bin.
[wlchecklist name=’NewHabitDay5′]
5 MINUTES ONLY – Tidy the kitchen bench
Tidy the kitchen bench. Let’s maintain the great work you did at the beginning of the week.
[wlchecklist name=’5minutesonlyDay5′]
DOWNLOAD
Print the daily sheet to keep for reference while you are completing the above tasks.
- DAY 5 DAILY TASK SHEET – file behind ‘Daily Task’ divider – click to download.
156 comments
So lucky for me that I did my pantry recently with one of your daily task emails 🙂 My floors are beautiful – I should get a couple of hours out of it before the kids come home from school lol… Now back to Day 13….
Just a heads up ladies. . Yesterday i went to Howards Storage a boight 6 of the vacseal containers and was told they are being discontinued. Not sure if that is for all stores/States I live in South Australia. Might go back today to purchase a couple more ?
Yes I heard about this just recently. I am going to have to trial a few to see what a good replacement can be, that isn’t tupperware.
It took me 7 days as I had to spread day 3 and 5 over two days due to not feeling well… But I am done and even managed a mass clean out of my girls room ready for Bubs arrival (due Wednesday). My house feels and looks amazing and it’s only the end of week 1!! Bring on week 2!!!!!!
Due Wednesday…. Kody I feel like telling you you need to take the rest of the challenge off, rest and relax before bubs arrival, which i hope is fast and pain free xx
There isn’t a clean check list for the floors available to download – would really love to be able to tick the boxes once completed.
I love ticking boxes too Skye, I’ll look into this for next round.
Hi Kat,
I’m a bit of a late starter as well, just getting going today. In one of the last rounds we got a one pager that had the full challenge schedule on it. Mine is mostly ticked off, but I found it great to tuck into my diary and I could catch up on jobs as time allowed. I can’t work out whether it was emailed or available as a special download. Do you have something similar available this round?
Hi Sam, here is the printable on this page 🙂 https://20daychallenge.theorganisedhousewife.com.au/week-1/
Week 1 complete! I even managed to go back and make sure I’d done all the 5min tasks. I must admit though, I did have a head start with the pantry as I did a full organising of it a few weeks back while following your blog. Just needed a bit of a re-tidy this morning and it’s all set! 🙂 Looking forward to a relaxing weekend and then can’t wait for Week 2!
good on you Rebecca, how do you feel standing back and seeing what you have achieved??
So thrilled! I think I’m getting addicted to this new standard of cleanness! We are having visitors today who are staying for a couple of days and hubby asked last night what we needed to do to get the house nice for their arrival – I loved saying to him ‘nothing at all!’ I know I need to relax too but I keep checking to see if I can access Week 2 yet lol this course is absolutely worth every cent!
it should be open for you now Rebecca 🙂
Floors cleaned, next pantry!
How did you go with the pantry Katrina?
Unfortunately day 5 and have not been able to start . A funeral , mother in hospital and a few days of work . Should I start with day 1 tomorrow on Saturday or start with day 6 which is where the program is at ? Everything is printed and folder ready .
Ooh Joanne, I am so sorry to hear that you have been having a really hard, what I can imagine, an emotional week. It depends if you want to work alongside the other members and the emails, then start with day 6 on Monday. Or, if you’re happy to work at your own pace, start with Day 1.
Hi Kat, I start the challenge today. Thankfully we had some visitors last week so needed to do a good tidy up beforehand. However, I know I just shifted clutter from out of sight as we really didn’t have time to sort it all then. I have just read through the first 5 days activities as I’m feeling a little stressed out as to whether I can do this and apart from feeling a little overwhelmed by it all, I can’t believe how similar our lives are. I have twins +one more, and literally what you described as you before you uncluttered has exactly described my house. The bedside table and top drawer etc. Seeing this has given me hope. Oh also my mother (at 83 now) is also a hoarder, so once I am finished our place, I’ll have to start on hers. Looking forward to all your advice. My twins (10 atm, will be 11 on 24th May) sat down with me on Saturday and we all made up our morning and evening routines together. Sarah
Hopefully this can give you a vision that you can get past your current struggles and that you can make a change to your home. That is fantastic that you could sit down with the kids and work out a routine together, that will help you all in the long run. Routine and systems is the key to maintaining the areas that you have managed to organise and clean.
Starting to feel a little overwhelmed by it all now. I know I won’t get it done in the 20 days, but I will keep plodding on. Seriously, we just have SOOO much ‘stiff’ that needs to be gone!
just remember Sarah you don’t have to make your areas perfect, a start in each area can be good enough.
Thankfully one of our bathrooms is attached to the laundry so hope to finish the laundry off today as well. I’ve had a problem with geckos peeing down the insides of my laundry tub so am going to try the lemon oil. If you or anyone else has any thoughts or remedies for geckos I’d be happy to hear them. Bear in mind that I do have an outdoor laundry.
Done in bits and pieces but the key word is done!