At the end of the day, do you feel good about how your house looks? I'm a mostly-stay-at-home-work-two-days-a-week mom. I have time for housework. I even worked out a system at the beginning of the year for what chores to do on what days. Monday is laundry, bathroom, sweep. Tuesday is mop and any leftover laundry. Thursday is vacuum and sweep. Etc. But there are certain things that really do need to be done EVERY day. And I've been a slacker.
When you walk into my house, it's a split-level, so you take the stairs down to the basement (please don't! still a work in progress!) or take the stairs up to the kitchen-dining room-living room. So the first thing you see is the island and the kitchen counters. Since the island is the first surface you come to, it becomes a dumping ground for mail, random things from coat pockets, and items we want out of Abby's reach... There are also a few candles and a potted plant for when I try to make it look nice...
Then you look past that to the kitchen sink and surrounding counters. For some reason, dishes is one chore I really don't like to do. I've never figured out why. Yes we have a dishwasher, but often that will even get run and then just sit there until we need a dish or run out of spoons in the drawer.
When Rocky comes home after a long day at school, these are the first things he sees. And if nothing has changed since he left in the morning, he wonders what I've done all day... Now I've probably done a lot of other stuff around the house and spent time with Abby, but doesn't what you see when you first go somewhere set the tone for the rest of your time there? Whether it's a home, a store, a restaurant, etc.?
So my goal is going to be to clear the island every day before Rocky gets home, and do the dishes AT LEAST every other day, if not every day... Or at least unload-reload the dishwasher and put other dirties in the sink so they're not cluttering up the counter.
I think that will set the tone for anyone coming in to my home.
One other quick thing. I read/heard somewhere: A bed will often take up 80% of your bedroom space. So when your bed is left unmade... you get the picture. It only takes 2 minutes in the morning. Just do it.
Do you have any little tips for feeling good about your house?
I have the same problem with dishes. Except we don't have a dishwasher, so I can't even really hide them if I wanted to. I'm desperately looking forward to moving into an apartment with one soon. I'll never ignore it again (I say that now, anyway).
ReplyDeleteAs for tips, I try to take care of the one room where we spend the most time and the bedroom as much as possible. With those two rooms clean, everything feels a little better.