Entry Way–Before & After

Every week I ‘deep clean’ a different room.  It keeps the feeling of being overwhelmed with cleaning at bay if I do one room at a time and one room per week and with kids, that’s about as much as I can do anyway.  All hail to you moms who can scrub your floors and baseboards and clean under couches and beds and dust off ceiling fans every single week.  Truly.  I am somewhat of a clean freak (and Anthony is borderline OCD clean) and I would love if all of those things happened weekly or even bi-weekly around here.  But, like I said, they don’t.  It’s more like bi-monthly and I’m totally okay with that at this stage in life.

This week, that room/space is the entry way.  I’ll scrub the floors, clean the baseboards, vacuum the big return vent, wipe off the chandelier, and then move outside to sweep off the porch.  Usually, the room that I project in is the room I’m also deep cleaning.  So in case you’ve ever wondered why I skip from room to room with projects, that is why folks.  It’s so much easier to get a good after picture when you’ve just super-cleaned the room.  While I’m at it, I also try to make sure that that room is updated on our house tour page.  It’s physical and digital cleaning all in one foul swoop and it all kinda makes me feel real accomplished…especially when the majority of my week is spent translating toddler talk to myself, making approx. 20 bowls of oatmeal and/or pb&j’s, wiping tiny bums, and many, many more things.  Those things make me feel accomplished too, just in a different way.  Mothering is a duty that I love to do because I love my kids more than life but making rooms pretty is therapy (for when mothering becomes, you know, stressful).

But back to the entry way.  There’s a chandelier just sitting up alone in our attic waiting to be spray painted and hung outside on the porch and I was hoping to get to that this week but instead I’m working on some clothing refashions so the pretty light will have to wait until next time around.  We recently snatched up some landscape spotlights on clearance that I can’t wait to put outside so, when Anthony has enough time to do that, it’ll be a good time for me to work on the light anyway.  Then we can just get all the outside lighting up and out of the way. 

So, since the only thing I’m doing in the entry this week is cleaning, it was fun to check to make sure I have updated afters of it all.  I think it’s the before and afters though that really get me. 

 
We’ve come a long way with around $250, no?

.           .           .

Anyway, I’ve got a long way to go if I want to get anything done while all the kids are sawing twigs today so I’m out.  The vacuum and the kitchen floor are having a quick wedding and I’m the honored guest.

See ya.