Some Words on Cleaning

I promise I won't tell you about every single tiny thing I do in the nursery from here to October, but I can also promise that I'll most likely end up telling you about almost everything. (At least I'm being honest.) Yesterday I decided to tackle one of my monthly cleaning chores, "reorganize a drawer or closet," in the nursery. It was a pretty intentional decision, since cleaning out the closet and dresser drawers in the nursery were also on a different list. Kill two birds with one stone? Yes please.

Because this room has been unused until now, and since these dressers have been used for random extra storage in our guest room since we got married, there was a fair amount of cleaning out that needed to be done. The dresser drawers looked something like this:

One drawer had random nursery and baby stuff just stuffed inside, two drawers had old t-shirts of mine that I had one day planned on turning into a blanket, one drawer had some place mats hiding, and another drawer was stuffed full of garage rags that the hubs has been looking for since we moved (whoops). The rest of the drawers were empty.

I started with the t-shirts, and made three piles: "donate," "keep," and "hide in a different drawer in a different empty bedroom for another couple years because I can't bear to get rid of them yet but I know I won't wear them." What can I say? I'm not that strong. I moved all the shirts out of the room and into their respective new homes, and then moved the rest of the items out of the dresser. The garage rags were moved to the hall closet (to be better organized a different month), the place mats were moved to the cabinet in the kitchen where the rest of the place mats are, and the drawer of baby stuff got better rearranged. None of the drawers are organized yet, but 7 of the 8 drawers are empty and the only things in the dressers at this point are baby-related.

The closet, before I started cleaning it out, looked like this:

First, I need to say: aren't our closets amazing? That's original, 1970 cedar lining and built in drawers, ya'll. So cool. 

When we moved into the house, we knew this room would be the future nursery; it's the closest to our bedroom, and it's the smallest of the four bedrooms. Because of that, though, a lot of stuff that would one day belong to our kids was kind of thoughtlessly stuck in this closet. It was nice because we could close the doors and at least hide it, but I always knew the time would come when it would have to be addressed. I started by isolating the items that were more for "kids" and less for babies (my American Girl doll trunk and furniture, the Finding Nemo pillow) and moved them into the next empty bedroom's closet. I pulled all the blankets down from the shelf and separated them into two piles: blankets that needed to be moved to the blanket chest in the family room and ones that made more sense to stay in the nursery. Those got put into one of the drawers in the closet.

All that was left after that was just pulling out some other random things that had been stuck in there, like the large framed drawings the hubs did during high school that we hid in here because one of the pieces of glass is broken. The teddy bear and stuffed dog (really special and sentimental stuffed animals of my childhood) were put in the crib, the bag of random baby stuff we picked up from the people who sold us the crib got put into a tiny organized pile, and some of the larger crib and pack-n-play pieces got pushed over to one side of the closet. I also put the pack-n-play itself in the closet to hide it, since it wasn't really fitting the room's aesthetic standing up in the corner. Here's the the emptied and cleaned out closet.

It's nowhere near finished, and organization will come later just like in the dressers, but for now I feel like I can breathe a little better knowing everything is only where it should be. It will also be easy to put more things in there as we accumulate them, and not feel like the middle of the floor has to be the holding place.

As an afterthought, I did remember that I had a hanging shoe organizer in my "donate" pile, and grabbed it for this closet. I'm thinking it will be an excellent baby clothes/stuff organizer.

The nursery to-do list now looks like this:

• 1 Samuel 1:27-28 chalkboard
• quote for inside side table frame
• hang all pictures 
• turn green bottle into a lamp
• recover lamp shade? new lamp shade?
• paint dressers white
• paint side table white
• paint side table drawer pull silver
• make mobile for over crib
• paint metal pail for books
• clean out closet and closet drawers
• clean out dresser drawers
• line dresser drawers with contact paper
• organizers for inside of dresser drawers
• hem curtains and hang them...or new curtains?
• storage system and bins
• get small lamp for changing table
• make/buy crib skirt
• metal trash can for diapers
• basket with liner for hamper
• shelf over storage system?
• new overhead light?

Yeah...I added a couple things. I'm entirely sure I'll be adding things along the whole process. The hubs saw me writing things down the other day under the heading "Nursery," and started talking to the dog about how I have an infinite list for a room that's only so big. We'll see, babe.

One other thing I wanted to address is my updated weekly cleaning schedule. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I had switched up my monthly and bi-yearly cleaning schedule to be more intentional with the things that often go unnoticed and missed. It's been really helpful making that switch, and after talking to the hubs a little bit I've decided to switch up my weekly cleaning schedule too. I'd always been more attracted to the weekly Cleaning Day, where it all gets done at once and I don't have to think about it the rest of the week. Looking ahead, though, that's going to probably be pretty unrealistic to maintain once I have a newborn/infant/toddler. It makes a lot more sense to break it up in between days and do a couple things every day rather than trying to do 20 on one day. (In all honesty, sometimes I don't do things on my list because I don't feel like it or because I'm overwhelmed...and that's going to be harder to get away with when I know I only have a couple things to clean that day.)

So here's the new plan:

Monday: 

• grocery shopping
• clean coffee pot and parts
• vacuum carpet
• vacuum hard floors
• mop if needed
• dust

Tuesday:

• clean dog beds and blankets
• clean couch

Wednesday:

• clean back door
• laundry 
• get all cobwebs
• dust baseboards

Thursday:

• clean dog bowls
• clean bathrooms
• wash bath mats
• vacuum carpet
• vacuum hard floors
• mop
• wash sheets and towels

Friday:

• clean out fridge
• clean stainless steel
• clean stove top
• clean sink
• dust

Some of the days that have a lot less were intentionally designed that day because of what my weekly schedule looks like outside of the house (I work Wednesdays mornings in Manassas, for example, so I knew I wouldn't have a ton of time to do a lot, but laundry is very doable). I'm excited about this switch, and I think it will help me keep the mentality of maintaining a clean house, rather than checking out until "cleaning day." And by practicing and getting all the kinks knocked out now, it should hopefully be that much easier to keep up once the baby comes.