cleaning
Keeping it Real… {My Dirty Truth}
This was not the blog post I had planned for this morning, but yesterday evening I happened to check my blog stats to see what posts people were reading. I was amused–and a little horrified–to see that, thanks to Pinterest, the most popular posts of the day were Why I Make the Bed: 10 Reasons I Keep My House Clean and Speed Cleaning. As I looked around my house, I couldn’t help but think to myself, wow, if they only knew….. Because in that moment every single room in my house was an absolute disaster, dishes piled in the sink, laundry overflowing from the hamper, clutter, sand, dust, and dog ... read more
8 Must-Have Bathroom Cleaning Tools
Ever wonder what bathroom cleaning tools you can’t live without and which ones are just taking up space? Pop over to Home Made Simple to check out my list of 8 Must-Have Bathroom Cleaning Tools, along with lots of little-known tips for how to use them more effectively! Pin It
Conquering the Kitchen {The Big Spring Clean, Part 4}
Hopefully by now you are all enjoying the fruits of your Big Spring Clean labor and your home is now relatively dirt and clutter free. Doesn’t it feel GOOD? Of course if you are anything like me, there may be one room that looks tidy on the surface, but that is secretly haunting you behind closed cabinet doors. It’s not that we don’t want to keep our kitchens neat and organized, but so often the hustle & bustle of every day life gets in the way. We rush to put away groceries without bothering–or having time–to throw out the items no longer edible. We open multiple packages of the same ... read more
Cleaning From Top to Bottom {The Big Spring Clean, Part 3}
Spring is finally officially here, which means that today, after clearing out our clutter and making our own green & thrifty cleaning products, it is now time to CLEAN! Are you ready? Once-or-twice-a-year deep cleaning is a lot different then regular old day-to-day cleaning. (For daily cleaning tips, check out my speed cleaning routine!) It is your chance to take care all those often-neglected, out-of-sight, out-of-mind areas, to reduce allergens, minimize clutter, and to make your home a haven. For this process, I find it helpful to follow a system of cleaning the entire house from top-to-bottom rather than room-to-room so that all the dust and debris that gets stirred ... read more
Green & Thrifty Cleaning Products {The Big Spring Clean, Part 2}
Hopefully all this de-cluttering is getting you all excited for the deep, deep cleaning that is going to happen soon! I don’t know how it is for you, but with every box of stuff I get rid of I feel like another little load has been lifted off my shoulders. We are still going to take some time in the next week for more weeding and purging, but in the meantime I thought it would be a good idea to also start gathering some of the necessary tools you’ll need to get your space spic & span. I have always had a bad habit of thinking that more cleaning supplies ... read more
Clearing the Clutter {The Big Spring Clean, Part 1}
Okay, so technically Spring doesn’t start for another 12 days but I figured I needed to start now to give you (and myself) a little time to gear up for The Big Spring Clean. This year I thought it would be fun to do a spring cleaning series for a little extra motivation, breaking the process into manageable steps so that by the end of the month, our homes all sparkle. You with me? Good! We are going to start by clearing the clutter. But first, a riddle: What do you get when you take one shopaholic-turned-coupon fanatic and one guy who hates to get rid of anything, then add ... read more
How I Get My Kids to Clean Their Room
I haven’t talked about it much but for the past year or so an epic struggle has been waging in the Soukup household. It is Mommy versus Kids in the War of the Tidy Room, and while there are still small battles being fought now and then, I can finally say with confidence that I am winning. I am not exaggerating when I tell you it has been a long and arduous and, at times, downright painful campaign. It has involved tears, threats, bribes, rewards, games, countless trips to the naughty stool, and more reorganizing, reevaluating, relabeling, and retraining than I would care to admit. At one point it even ... read more
Clean Your Kids’ Room {Day Ten}
This is the tenth day of my 31 Days of Living Well & Spending Zero challenge. To read all the posts in order, start with Day One or visit the Overview Page. * * * Can you believe we’ve already made it almost 1/3 of the way through this challenge? If you completed yesterday’s assignment, doesn’t it feel great to start the day with a clean house? (Side Note: If you didn’t have a chance to complete the assignment yet then don’t get down on yourself! The tasks presented during this challenge are meant to use as a guideline and motivation as you make your way through ... read more
Cleaning Day {Day Nine}
This is the ninth day of my 31 Days of Living Well & Spending Zero challenge. To read all the posts in order, start with Day One or visit the Overview Page. * * * Are you ready for this? It’s CLEANING DAY! I know you’re excited. Can I get a little woot woot? The older I get, the more of a clean freak I become. But I wasn’t always that way, and even now, keeping things neat and tidy certainly does NOT come naturally to me. It is still something I have to work at every single day. It is still something I have to gear up ... read more
Get Ready to Clean {Day Eight}
This is the eighth day of my 31 Days of Living Well & Spending Zero challenge. To read all the posts in order, start with Day One or visit the Overview Page. * * * Last week we spent a lot of time thinking about food–making an inventory of what we had on hand, brainstorming meal ideas, planning a meal swap, & even re-creating our favorite restaurant meals at home–all based on the underlying premise that we make bad financial decisions when we are hungry. But there are other pitfalls that can trip us up too. We let our homes get chaotic and cluttered and dirty and then ... read more
Why I took my kids’ toys away {& why they won’t get them back}
If you follow Project Simplify 365, you already know that I’ve been on a mission this year to simplify my family’s life and rid ourselves of excess. Over the course of this past year I have probably given away about 75 percent of their toys, keeping only the items that I felt encouraged their imagination and that they actually played with. I thought I was doing pretty good. Even so, there were warning signs that my kids still had too much stuff. In June, we took a field trip to Reptile World in Orlando. Afterwards we decided it would be fun to take the girls to dinner at a dinosaur-themed ... read more
Why I Make My Bed {10 Reasons I Keep My House Clean}
A couple of months ago, when I launched ProjectSimplify365.com, I posted a list of “simple rules” that I wanted my family to live by. Funnily enough, the one thing people commented on more than any other was a line I honestly hadn’t thought twice about including: Make your bed every day. (Get the free download here) Is this a novel concept? I am slightly obsessive about making our bed each morning. I also try (though some days are more successful than others) to spend an hour “Speed Cleaning” the rest of my house. Until I posted the above list, it never even occurred to me that it might be considered odd. ... read more
The Snowball Effect
Remember this? It is the armoire I planned to organize as one of my monthly goals, way back in September. And then again in October. And November. And December. Until finally in January I just stopped making monthly goals. It used to be our “home office” and it looked like this inside: Then we started our remodeling project and moved our home office into our bedroom. This left us an empty armoire. At first we thought we’d sell it, but that made us sad because we both really liked it. We then decided it would be way cooler if we could install a beverage refrigerator and convert it into a ... read more
Speed Cleaning
Over the years I’ve had lots of people ask how I manage to keep my house so clean all the time. So–at the risk of having you all think I am completely crazy–I thought today I’d share my little “speed cleaning” routine. I probably spend, on average, about 45 minutes to an hour each morning making my house sparkle. This means I spend about 5-7 hours a week cleaning. That is still a significant amount of time! However, to me it is well worth spending 5-7 hours a week cleaning in order to have a house that is pretty darn neat & tidy most of the time. The trick ... read more
