We can do this the easy way...

I hope.

I have one week and one day to get my house clean and ready for holiday guests. And by clean I mean a good, deep, fall cleaning and clearing out. I have done the math. At roughly three hours per room to accomplish the level of clean that I desire, we are talking 33 hours of intensive labor. No matter how you crunch those numbers it cannot be accomplished in one day.  Just to be on the safe side we should probably allow a little more for certain areas, so say 40 hours. It could be done in two days, if I got rid of my family, slept four hours a night, and didn't stop to eat or go to the bathroom. No thank you. No wonder it hasn't worked in the past when I've put off deep cleaning my entire house until the day before I have a party or guests coming to stay.

I've always had the intention of trying the method of cleaning one room a day over the course of a week. So that's what I am trying to accomplish this week. And because I know myself and how badly I procrastinate and push the worst rooms off to the last, I decided last night to write down each room and draw it out of a hat to determine the order I clean them in. (Actually I made Brian do the drawing, that way I can blame him when they aren't in the order I wanted them to be...)

Day 1: Laundry Room

This was a good one to start with, mostly because I've been dreading it and putting it off for a month and a half. I didn't think to take any before pictures, but basically this was the black hole where everything that I wasn't sure where else to put it while we were rearranging the downstairs got shoved out of the way. Throw in a motley assortment of holiday decorations, party supplies, craft supplies, toys and laundry, and well... I think you can imagine the horror for yourself.

Two and a half hours later I have another trunk load of stuff for the DI, a mostly full garbage can, and a nicely cleaned and organized laundry room. Yay!

Top shelf: Holiday decorations, each holiday in it's very own tote.

Middle shelf: Painting and crafting supplies.

Bottom shelf: Party supplies, gift wrap and boxes.

The other top half of the cupboard fits my scrap fabric totes perfectly! 

I have been very resistant to using these cupboards since we first moved into the house, and now I can't for the life of me remember why... if there ever was a reason. It's such great storage. Sometimes I am a slow learner.

The new home for the scrap-booking supplies, and my downstairs yarn stash.

And last, but not least, something that you hardly ever see in this house...

The washer and dryer without crap piled all over the top of it!

 Ta da!

I even took the time to sweep the cobwebs off of the ceiling and walls as best I could. It was dusty and creepy, but it feels really good to have it done.  So, day one and a big check mark off my list! Here's hoping the trend continues all week long...