Spring Cleaning!

This weekend I took one look at my pantry and decided that something needed to be done.

I’ll grudgingly share the before:

And the after:

The most satisfying part for me was relocating my craft supplies from a grocery bag to clear plastic bins, and reorganizing the games and kid craft supplies. I bought five of those shoe box sized bins for $5 at Target and I think I’ll be going back for more as I found so many uses for them.

I couldn’t get a good shot that included the floor, but I sorted the bags – paper, plastic, reusable, so they’re easy to find. We do have a use for plastic bags as we have a dog who we like to walk occasionally, and we have to clean up after him.

Then, in a Pinterest-induced surge or productivity, I tackled the inside of my washing machine. Have you looked at yours lately?

When we moved here, the builder was SHOCKED that we weren’t buying a new washer/dryer set. It wasn’t that I wasn’t drawn to the pretty new front loaders in fun colors, but we have a fully functioning pair, so why would we ditch them? The moment they were in my shiny new laundry room, I began to loathe them. We had what amounted to a laundry closet at our last house, and I spent as little time as possible with them. Now we have so much space, and an actual WINDOW in our laundry room and I really do love the room. The machines, not so much.

Take a look at this (ick!):

I was inspired by this post, but I tweaked the process a little.

I filled the washer with hot water and added one cup of white vinegar, because that’s all I had on hand. Then I added one cup of washing soda from my ill-fated homemade laundry detergent experiment, because it seemed like a good idea, and because it’s labeled as a household cleaner. I let this sit for an hour.

You can see the the water doesn’t fill completely to the top, so those areas will need light scrubbing.

After an hour I scrubbed the areas that the water didn’t cover, including the crevices by the lid. It didn’t take much scrubbing. The combo of the warm water, vinegar and washing soda seems to just melt everything away. I then ran a rinse cycle and was blown away by the difference.

Hello gorgeous!

Look at that shiny white agitator! Those are words I never thought I would say, but man was that satisfying.

I also cleaned out several cabinets that were overrun with cameras, chargers, and other electronic detritus. I took a picture of that too, but it seemed like a bad idea to visually catalog all of our electronics and show the world where we keep them, so you’ll just have to trust me that there is an additional beautiful space in my home.

Now for the truth! The rest of my weekend was completely unproductive. I haven’t cleaned the bathrooms, dusted, vacuumed or cleaned the kitchen, all of which are usual weekend chores. Also, I was so busy cleaning the washer itself I only did one load of laundry which is sitting on the floor of my bedroom unfolded.

Whatever, I can easily locate Chutes and Ladders.