The *Other* Bathroom

We have two bathrooms.  It is a huge blessing because one of them is my bathroom (and the husband's) and the other is the KIDs' bathroom.  He he.  This means I don't have to deal with little kid pee smell every time I use it.  I also don't have to look at globs of toothpaste in the sink when I brush my teeth.  I can, pretty much, completely avoid it unless I have to deal with it.

Before you get too worried, I do go in there from time to time to keep it from getting disgusting, but daily?  No way.  No how.  Until now.

You see, company uses that bathroom.  Which means that when it's time to have someone over I have to do a major overhaul.  I am trying to get to the point where my entire house is in acceptable condition at most times of the day (or at least once a day).  Or at least the public areas (yes, I just continuously scaled back until I hit the realistic limit).  That would include the other bathroom!

And, while I would have loved to push it to the back of the list of rooms to tackle, my choices now included the bathroom, the kitchen, the laundry room, or the office/school/catch all area.  The bathroom was the smallest.  It was also the easiest!

Before I started in the bathroom each day, I made sure to do my previous day's work first.  

1.  Start first load of laundry
2.  Make bed.
3.  Get dressed (shoes)
4.  Starting at bedside table and going around the room I picked up clothes, clutter, trash, and things that didn't belong in the room (taken to the rooms where they did).
5.  I picked up the master bathroom floor and counters.
6.  Changed the roll of toilet paper.
7.  Did one weekly task in the bathroom.
8.  Started a load of laundry (came back to put in drier/hang to dry and to fold one load).
9.  Wiped down table and benches.
10.  Swept the dining area floor.
11.  Emptied the trash.
12.  Switched over laundry, hung up wet clothes, folded prior day's load.  Put load away.
Next on the list would have been to pick up the living room, but I delegated ;).  That became one of the jobs for the kids.

The first day of the bathroom, I just picked it up.  Mostly it was just dirty clothes that my children had left behind, and trash that was in the random direction of the trash can.  My kids think that is good enough.  Sigh.  Oh, and I put the toilet paper on the roll  and threw away the 4 or 5 empty rolls that were next to it.  I think it was the first time the roll had been on the dispenser in quite awhile.

The rest of the recovery went WAAAAYYY better then I could of thought.  You see, I was already cleaning up one bathroom and doing one weekly chore per day.  So, as soon as I finished one sink, I just walked over to the other bathroom.  When I cleaned one toilet I just went and cleaned the other toilet.  

No need to get out extra cleaning supplies, they were already out.  No need to think about what I should be doing, I was already doing it.  Man that was easy.  Why didn't I think of that before?  Duh moment.

I realize that if the bathroom was on another floor of the house it would have been a little harder, but not much.  And, it was a mute point because they are RIGHT next to each other.  One is just IN my bedroom and the other right OUTSIDE my bedroom (old house, all water must run to the same place).

Of course, this being the first time I had worked on cleaning the 2nd bath in awhile, it took a little longer then the master, but not long.  10 minutes tops on any given task and I was done with both bathrooms.  

It's THIS kind of thinking that has derailed my cleaning in the past.  Somehow, I think things will take FOREVER, when they will only take a few minutes.  The best part, is that now my children are seeing what a maintained bathroom should look like, so sooner then later I can pass the job off to them ;).

5 weeks, 5 rooms and I can certainly tell you that the house was looking up!!

Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
Lisa

Giving Everything a Place: Bathroom/Laundry

I am on a mission to give everything in my home a home of its own. This week's focus was my guest bath, which is also our laundry room...which is also about 4 steps from the front door. I have only one room in my house that I would rather guests not see when they visit {well other then the storage room, that's a given right?} is the laundry room. So, placing the laundry room in the guest bathroom would not be my idea. *SIGH* It is what it is...and I do thank God that I dont have to go to the laundromat!!

I realized that I really only organized the inside of the cabinets, the room itself was pretty clutter free. It does need some decorative touches-but that's for another mission.

As I went through each cabinet, I thought about how I currently use them and what I should keep in them. When we moved in, each cabinet was pretty much already full, so I emptied the remainder of what was in them. Then, I changed the heights of some of the shelves. What had been best for the last owners were not the best for me, but I just threw my things in when we got here and didnt really think about how I needed them.

Laundry Cabinet Before & After:




Um yes you do see labels. I dont think labels will be best in all of my rooms, but in this one I felt they were needed. Most of these cabinets had become 'catch all,' because they hold a lot of regular use, regular rotated items that just get tossed into a close cabinet when used. Since I am getting used to the fact that there is actually a place where each thing goes {and so is my ehem husband} I wanted these guides to remind me when I put things away to not just put them 'somewhere.'

And on the subject of labels. I didnt go buy a label maker {though I DID change my Facebook status that day to reflect my desire to own one}. I used purple printer paper, a marker, and packing tape. Works just as well!

Under the sink before & after




I added toilet paper! Nice touch eh?

The cleaning supplies before & after:




I have since added a roll of paper towels to go with the Windex. I hated that I was always going to the kitchen to get paper towels and getting distracted when I got there.

And the toiletries cabinet before & after:





I buy a lot of toiletries ahead of time due to my couponing. It helps to have them all in one spot so that you know what you have too much of and what you dont have enough of. I had so much toothpaste at one time that I was actually giving it away to family. But, I didnt have it all in one spot and ended up having to buy toothpaste at full price because we didnt have any.

I have found that these basket/bins are useful in every part of my house. Walmart recently clearanced them out for 50 cents a bin, I bought nearly every one. I would buy 5.00 worth each time I went to the store until they were gone! You will be seeing them in a lot of my posts, as they are the perfect size and shape for most of my cupboards.

My next spot is the clutter catcher right next to our TV. God Bless!