Monthly Cleaning Challenge: Change Magic's Litter

This month it's all about getting cleaning!  I know, so exciting.  Haha.  The first step was to create a list of the things I want to accomplish.  The next step is to accomplish them!  Here's the list of the things I have already accomplished:

1. Make cleaning supplies

2. Clean out microwave

3. Vacuum Magic's tower

4. Vacuum mattress

5. Wash bath rugs

6. Wash garbage can

7. Wash Windows

8. Wipe down cabinets/appliances

For this post I took on the task: Change Magic's Litter

We use scoopable litter for Magic's litter box.  It's wonderful that we can keep his box clean and not have to buy new litter all the time.  Typically I try to scoop out his litter box every day (or every other day if I forget).  It keeps him happy and keeps me happy :)  But just because we can scoop the litter that doesn't mean we can keep using the same litter forever.  So, once a month, we throw the litter away and replace it with fresh new litter!

This month we are using Tidy Cats.  Why?  It was on sale.  This household is loyal to whatever brand happens to be the cheapest when we need to buy new litter.  Magic isn't picky (thank goodness!) and neither are we.  But I will say we are loyal to Jonny Cat Heavy Duty bags.  Magic has a big litter box and these bags fit.  They are also sturdy and don't break when we swap out the litter.  Occasionally Magic get's a little aggressive with covering up his stuff and he has ripped some holes in the bag.  But that doesn't happen often and it's worse with other bags.  So these win!

As I said, we typically scoop out his litter box each night which usually means grabbing one of these babies!

We grabbed these at the dollar store and I love them.  They're cute and perfect for the job they fill.  But this time that wasn't needed.  I'm going to spare you all the pictures from before and after.  Because, let's be honest, litter is pretty gross.  Especially used litter.  So I'm avoiding that all together and giving you my "artistic" angle which prevents you from seeing inside the litter box.

His litter box (or man cave as we call it) is on the patio.  We keep an empty bucket which used to hold Publix's brand of scoopable litter next to it.  I stick the filled zebra bags in it when I clean up his litter box each night and then they all get tossed in the dumpster at the end of the week.

Well, we have reached the end of March.  And I didn't accomplish everything that I had intended to.  But that's okay!  The rest of the items will just need to be completed in February.  Along with other tasks that I may decided need to be accomplished.  Or things that need to be accomplished again because, even though we don't want them to, things get dirty again after you clean them.  I'm proud of what I was able to accomplish and I hope you are too!

Dumpster Find: Dresser

I am so excited to share today's post with you all!  A few days ago I was pulling into a parking spot in my apartment complex when I spotted something sitting outside the dumpster.  I immediately backed out of my spot and drove over to see if I could take it home with me!  Curious?  Take a look!

A beautiful dresser!  Okay, so it's not so beautiful.  But I knew that it could be beautiful with a little TLC.  I wanted it!  But I ended up not being able to lift it alone.  So I waited till my roommate came home and she helped me out.  And then we were struggling to get that thing upstairs..  But a friendly guy from the apartment building next to us came out and helped us take it upstairs.

We set it down outside the front door since I knew I wanted to clean it up before taking it inside.  And here's what I was working with.

A missing drawer, coffee or tea stains, and water damage to the top.  Oh, and one of the drawers is missing the bottom piece so it's pretty pointless.

So I pulled out the useless drawer and swapped the remaining drawers around, wiped it all down with my homemade all purpose cleaner, and got another look.

I'm really excited to tackle this project.  I've got big plans :)  I don't have a dresser in my bedroom and I really need one.  So this is perfect.  Keep an eye out over the next few days, I may have an update for you all.

Monthly Cleaning Challenge: Wipe Down Cabinets/Appliances

This month it's all about getting cleaning!  I know, so exciting.  Haha.  The first step was to create a list of the things I want to accomplish.  The next step is to accomplish them!  Here's the list of the things I have already accomplished:

1. Make cleaning supplies

2. Clean out microwave

3. Vacuum Magic's tower

4. Vacuum mattress

5. Wash bath rugs

6. Wash garbage can

7. Wash Windows

For this post I took on the task: Wipe Down Cabinets/Appliances

Luckily our cabinets and appliances don't show much dirt.  Though that could be a bad thing since it leads to them getting cleaned much less often than they probably should.  This is the first time I've wiped down the cabinet doors since we moved in almost a year ago.  And the appliances haven't been wiped down much more often.  

I'll let you take a look at the cabinet that showed the most dirt.  The cabinet to the right of our stove/oven.

See what I mean?  Doesn't seem so dirty.  But that spot right at the corner of the stove hood you can see that something got splashed on it.  And I'll let you know it's something sticky.  Gross.  Time to arm myself with some cleaning supplies!

Are you sick of pictures of my all purpose cleaner and a microfiber rag yet?  Haha.

I sprayed down the fronts of all the cabinets and ran over them with the microfiber rag.  Then I did the same for the appliances (oven, microwave, toaster oven).  And even though I couldn't really tell they were dirty, looking at the rag afterwards I realized they were dirtier than I thought.  I'll spare you that picture.  But I will show you a nice pretty picture of a cleaner cabinet and microwave:

No more sticky stuff!  Hurray!

Why hello there!  Yup, that's me holding the rag in the reflection on the microwave.

Everything is feeling so clean and I love it!

So let's see how many more things I plan to accomplish:

1. cycle clean appliances

2. clean out car

3. wipe down trim/doors

4. clean out one drawer

5. vacuum furniture

6. clean oven

7. change magic's litter

8. change air filter

Monthly Cleaning Challenge: Wash Windows

This month it's all about getting cleaning!  I know, so exciting.  Haha.  The first step was to create a list of the things I want to accomplish.  The next step is to accomplish them!  Here's the list of the things I have already accomplished:

1. Make cleaning supplies

2. Clean out microwave

3. Vacuum Magic's tower

4. Vacuum mattress

5. Wash bath rugs

6. Wash garbage can

For this post I took on the task: Wash Windows

Mostly this post was inspired by the need to wash the sliding glass door leading to the patio.  But I figured while I tackled that, I might as well tackle all the windows.

The sliding door gets used the most by Magic.  Since my roommate and I don't spend much time out there, it's pretty much his territory.  He even has a small cat tower out there.  Spoiled much?  Plus that's where we keep his litter box.  So he goes in and out a lot.  When the weather is nice we keep the air off and the door open.  But when it's not so nice that door gets shut!  And Magic doesn't have as much freedom.  Sometimes he will sit at the door and wait for us to let him out.  And other times he gets up on his back legs and paws at the door..  And that's where all these smudges come from:

Hopefully you can see them as well as I can.  Oh Magic...  And, unfortunately, he doesn't clean the smudges that he leaves.  So that becomes the human job.  So I armed myself with my homemade all purpose cleaner and a microfiber rag and set to work.

I just sprayed the door and the windows with the cleaner and went over it with the microfiber rag.  I was really nervous it was going to leave streaks but it actually didn't!  Hurray!  And now the door and the windows are all clean again.  Now if only I can convince Magic to leave them that way...

Isn't that so much better?  And here's a look at one of the other windows:

All clean!

So let's see how many more things I plan to accomplish:

1. cycle clean appliances

2. clean out car

3. wipe down cabinets/appliances

4. wipe down trim/doors

5. clean out one drawer

6. vacuum furniture

7. clean oven

8. change magic's litter

9. change air filter

Monthly Cleaning Challenge: Wash Garbage Can

This month it's all about getting cleaning!  I know, so exciting.  Haha.  The first step was to create a list of the things I want to accomplish.  The next step is to accomplish them!  Here's the list of the things I have already accomplished:

1. Make cleaning supplies

2. Clean out microwave

3. Vacuum Magic's tower

4. Vacuum mattress

5. Wash bath rugs

For this post I took on the task: Wash Garbage Can

I think we all know how gross and grimy a garbage can gets.  With garbage constantly going in and out, the garbage can must not be neglected when it comes time to clean up.  So today I made sure to give my garbage can a good clean :)

First step: fill the bottom of the can with some soapy water.  Next: take this baby outside!  Since I was scrubbing down the inside and outside of the garbage can I decided to complete this outside so any dirty water splashing wouldn't end up on my kitchen floor.

I grabbed two cleaning rags for this process.

One I used with the soapy water to scrub down the garbage can.  And the other dry one I used to wipe it down once I was finished.

Make sure you don't forget about the lid!  That needs to get a good cleaning as well.

Once the can received a good scrubbing, it returned to its spot in the kitchen!

So much better!  All clean and smelling fresh :)

So let's see how many more things I plan to accomplish:

1. cycle clean appliances

2. clean out car

3. wipe down cabinets/appliances

4. wipe down trim/doors

5. clean out one drawer

6. vacuum furniture

7. clean oven

8. wash windows

9. change magic's litter

10. change air filter

Monthly Cleaning Challenge: Wash Bath Rugs

This month it's all about getting cleaning!  I know, so exciting.  Haha.  The first step was to create a list of the things I want to accomplish.  The next step is to accomplish them!  Here's the list of the things I have already accomplished:

1. Make cleaning supplies

2. Clean out microwave

3. Vacuum Magic's tower

4. Vacuum mattress

For this post I took on the task: Wash Bath Rugs

Every time either my roommate or I takes a shower, our lovely little bath rug gets used!  And with how often that is, it gets a lot of action and collects a lot of dirt.  So it definitely needs to be washed regularly.  However, what keeps bugging me about our bath (and toilet) rug is that even after it takes a cycle through the washing machine, it still looks dirty.  Let me show you what I mean:

Yup.  This is a "clean" bath rug.  And here's a "clean" toilet rug.

Am I the only one who thinks that's gross?  All those flecks of I don't even know what.  So in addition to getting washed, I decided these babies needed a date with my vacuum!  Cue the hand-dandy brush attachment:

I had to really scrub with the brushing tool in order to get all that fuzz and such off the rugs.  To do both rugs took about 5 minutes.  So basically no time at all!  And the result was amazing!

They look sooo much nicer!  And fluffier :D  And I am much happier!

So let's see how many more things I plan to accomplish:

1. cycle clean appliances

2. clean out car

3. wipe down cabinets/appliances

4. wipe down trim/doors

5. clean out one drawer

6. vacuum furniture

7. clean oven

8. wash garbage can

9. wash windows

10. change magic's litter

11. change air filter

Monthly Cleaning Challenge: Vacuum Mattress

This month it's all about getting cleaning!  I know, so exciting.  Haha.  The first step was to create a list of the things I want to accomplish.  The next step is to accomplish them!  Here's the list of the things I have already accomplished:

1. Make cleaning supplies

2. Clean out microwave

3. Vacuum Magic's tower

For this post I took on the task: Vacuum Mattress.

I don't typically think about cleaning my bed other than washing all the linens and the comforter.  But after recently reading about how much a person sweats at night, and how much dead skin a mattress can accumulate, I needed to reevaluate.  And my reevaluation now includes vacuuming the mattress.  

So I grabbed my handy dandy vacuum, attached the brush tool, and got to work.  I stripped the bed of everything!  The linens went into the washing machine (I even washed the mattress liner), and the mattress pad and mattress got a good vacuuming!

Easy peasy!  It took less than 10 minutes to do the vacuuming.  And now I feel much better!

Then everything was returned to the bed :)

That wrinkle on the edge of the bed was Magic who jumped out of the picture right before I took it.  And, of course, I didn't think to smooth that out.  Haha.

So let's see how many more things I plan to accomplish:

1. cycle clean appliances

2. clean out car

3. wipe down cabinets/appliances

4. wipe down trim/doors

5. clean out one drawer

6. vacuum furniture

7. clean oven

8. wash garbage can

9. wash windows

10. wash bath rugs

11. change magic's litter

12. change air filter

Monthly Cleaning Challenge: Vacuum Magic's Tower

This month it's all about getting cleaning!  I know, so exciting.  Haha.  The first step was to create a list of the things I want to accomplish.  The next step is to accomplish them!  Here's the list of the things I have already accomplished:

1. Make cleaning supplies

2. Clean out microwave

I was supposed to post something the past two days.  And, while I did those cleaning tasks, I didn't get around to posting about them.  I've been studying for the last test to get my teaching certificate!  The test is Monday so that's #1 priority right now.  But I've still been chipping away at the list for this month.

For this post I took on the task: Vacuum Magic's Tower.

We have Magic's cat tower set up in the corner of our living room next to one of our couches, with a prime view of the window.  What a lucky little kitty.

Well he loves that tower and it gets a lot of use.  Meaning cat hair starts to build up, and sometimes catnip.  So we definitely need to keep it clean!  I completely forgot to take a before picture of this endeavor.  But I do have a during picture!  I took the brush attachment tool on the vacuum and gave the whole thing a good vacuuming.  Making sure to get in the crevices and everything.

Much better!  And Magic is still loving his perch by the window.  It's the perfect spot for him to watch the squirrels and the birds playing outside.

So let's see how many more things I plan to accomplish:

1. cycle clean appliances

2. clean out car

3. wipe down cabinets/appliances

4. wipe down trim/doors

5. clean out one drawer

6. vacuum furniture

7. vacuum mattress

8. clean oven

9. wash garbage can

10. wash windows

11. wash bath rugs

12. change magic's litter

13. change air filter

Monthly Cleaning Challenge: Clean Out Microwave

This month it's all about getting cleaning!  I know, so exciting.  Haha.  The first step was to create a list of the things I want to accomplish.  The next step is to accomplish them!  Here's the list of the things I have already accomplished:

1. Make cleaning supplies

I know.  What an extensive list!  But I've only just started.  And today marks another accomplishment: Clean out microwave.

The microwave is definitely on the list of appliances that get used a lot, and cleaned much less often.  Since most of the time we cook fast and easy microwave foods on a time crunch, there isn't really time to clean.  But it's definitely important!  If you don't believe me, check out the before picture.

Gross.  Since I take pictures on my iPhone I know it isn't the best picture.  One day I will invest in a camera that takes higher quality photos.  But, for now, the iPhone works.

So to clean it out I had two options.  1) spend forever scrubbing and scraping to get the gunk out  2) spend much less time and effort by steaming it.  Needless to say I went with the second option.

I grabbed a microwave safe bowl and filled it with one cup of water and one cup of vinegar.  Then I placed it in the microwave and set it for 5 minutes.  Then I just had to wait.

After five minutes I took the bowl out (using a potholder cause that thing was hot!) and wiped down everything in the microwave with a damp cloth.  I took out the spinning plate and wiped both sides of that, the sides, the bottom, the top - everything.  And the yucky stuff came off so easily!  I didn't have to scrape and scrub at all.  The steam from the vinegar/water mixture did the hard work for me.

Look how clean that is!  Now I don't cringe every time I open the microwave door.  It's a good feeling :)

So let's see how many more things I plan to accomplish:
1. cycle clean appliances
2. clean out car
3. wipe down cabinets/appliances
4. wipe down trim/doors
5. clean out one drawer
6. vacuum furniture
7. vacuum mattress
8. clean oven
9. wash garbage can
10. wash windows
11. vacuum Magic's tower
12. wash bath rugs
13. change magic's litter
14. change air filter

Progress is being made!

Monthly Cleaning Challenge: Make Cleaning Supplies

Since my Monthly Cleaning Challenge was inspired by Jen over at iHeartOrganizing it shouldn't come as a surprise that she also inspired me to make my own cleaning supplies.  So that was my first task!  I decided to start simple with an all purpose cleaner.

I gathered all my supplies together and was excited to get started.

I used a 1:1 ratio of distilled white vinegar and distilled water.  And to try to cut the smell of the vinegar a little, I used a tbs of lemon juice.  Note: the vinegar smell is definitely still there, but because of the water and lemon juice it isn't as strong.

I picked up two spray bottles from Dollar Tree to house my new cleaner.

Don't you just love the pink spray nozzles?  I do!

Armed with my new cleaner and one of the un-paper towels I made, I wiped down all the kitchen counters and the kitchen sink.

It cleaned everything really well!  I was really surprised and very pleased.  And it's definitely easy on the budget :)

And, of course, everything is better with a pretty label!

I snagged this free download on this post from Jen.  Gotta love it :)

Does anyone else make their own cleaners?

Monthly Clean Home Challenge

Hey everyone!  Remember me?  I haven't been updating for a while.  And it's been even longer since I've done a post about something other than books (that's still going on but I haven't been updating).  But now this shall change!  Cause today I am super excited (probably more so than one should be) to talk about Spring Cleaning!

My favorite blogger - Jen from iHeartOrganizing - is doing a Monthly Clean Home Challenge.  And I have decided to hop on board :)  

Basically the challenge is to do each daily task, each weekly task, and then add an additional task each day of the week.  Spreading out the tasks like this makes it much less overwhelming.  And I'm all about that.  Go check out her blog for some tips and free printables!  That's what I did.  And now I've taken all that information and created a list of things for myself.

Here's what I've created using her free printable.  (note: this link takes you to her blog post with the printable, it is not the printable itself)

This will get printed and put in a picture frame so I can use it as a dry erase checklist.  I'm very excited!

I took Jen's lists and adapted them to fit my needs/wants and I am very excited to start!

Anyone else interested in joining the challenge?