Tidy Brown Wren, bringing order to your nest

So, if you're following along with me in the process of organizing and cleaning your entire house this year, we'll be working on the bathroom in February together.  Well, not really together.  I mean you work on your bathroom and I'll work on mine. I thought I would use some photos of bathrooms I've staged for my clients over the past year or two.   One of the things you will notice about all of these bathrooms is that I use all white linens and light colored accessories.   You'll want to work on only one bathroom in your home at a time.   As usual, you'll want to check out each bathroom and do an assessment.    Check out this post for the details. Staged bathroom in a home for sale. After you've done an assessment of the bathroom it's time to roll up your sleeves and get to work.    1. Remove everything from the cabinet or drawer. Wipe out the cabinet/drawer and line with contact paper if desired. ...

This past week I had a whole day to stay home and take care of household things.  Time to "putter" is a luxury these days and I enjoyed every minute of it.  A good portion of my day was spent in the kitchen and laundry areas and I was able to make up several batches of homemade cleaning solutions.  Since November is the month I've chosen for laundry room organizing, I thought this might be the  perfect time to share my recipes with you. If you want to try these recipes, please test them out on a small area first to make sure your home and the cleaning recipes will play nicely together.  Laundry Detergent: 1 cup grated bar soap (I use Fels Naptha) 1/2 cup washing soda (not baking soda) 1/2 cup borax I make a triple batch and store it in a canister in my cupboard.  I use 2 Tbl. per load. Dishwasher Detergent: 1 cup baking soda (yup, the baking kind) 1 cup borax 1/3 cup Lemi shine crystals (I buy it at Walmart) Mix toget...

July is almost over and I've done a pretty good job of working through my living room/family room.  I'm making a lot of changes to the room so it's been a good opportunity to really clean some forgotten areas.  Our main floor is really just one large room with a fireplace placed smack in the middle of it all.  Furniture arranging is a bit difficult, but we manage to make to work.  I treat the whole downstairs as one area when I'm cleaning and organizing.  This sofa is actually on it's way out of my house.  I've ordered a new sofa and chair and they are due to arrive in a week or two.  This old one (lovely plaid under this neutral cover) will go to our son and he can use it in his apartment.  OK.   Where was I?  Oh, yes, cleaning the forgotten places!  I almost forgot!  Forgotten places to clean: 1.   Baseboards - Vacuum with the brush attachment and wipe with a damp cloth.  Touch up any dings w...

Yesterday's Monday Motivation hopefully got you to tackle your bathroom this week.  I'm always on the lookout for inexpensive cleaning products that are not full of toxic chemicals to clean my bathroom.  I clean my bathrooms every few days and try to wipe up the sinks every day after we've finished getting ready for the day.  For the everyday wipe up, I use my Sparkle Cleaner .  Up until now, for the every-other-day clean up, I've been using Borax on a damp sponge, followed by the Sparkle Cleaner.  But now (cue happy music), I've discovered a spray cleaner that cuts through the soap and dirt that shows up at my house.  I've always liked the convenience of spray cleaner, but not the chemicals or strong smell.  I need something that won't harm my septic tank too.  I've tried a variety of homemade recipes, but I narrowed it down to a simple 2 ingredient product.  First I started with a 1 quart spray bottle (I got mine i...

Want to get your home organized this year?  The whole thing?  Well, you're in the right place.   We're going through the house, room by room.  January had us straighting up the foyer/entrance. February was the month to get the kitchen straight.  Now, in March, we're going to tackle the bathrooms.  Here are the posts from March of 2011 which showed you how to work on the different areas of your bathrooms.     Monday Motivation: Organizing The Bathroom   Most of us start our day in the bathroom. It's not really something we talk about - it's just part of our day. To me, the bathroom is the easiest and quickest room to clean and organize. Maybe not the most fun room, but definitely the easiest and quickest. I found this picture of a 1920s bathroom fixture advertisement. I wonder how many of those green fixtures are still around today? I couldn't help but notice how today's fixtures copy the lines of ...

If you've been following this blog for awhile, you're familiar with Monday Motivation. Monday Motivation was a prompt to help you clean and organize your home - one room/area at a time. By the end of the year, we had gone through the entire house (including the car) and purged, sorted, and organized. I've decided to include these posts, once a month, for those who want to continue through their home again. I'll be doing this in my home too. _______________________________________________________ originally posted in February 2011 We'll be breaking down the kitchen tasks into different categories: 1. Appliances 2. Cabinets 3. Drawers 4. Counters Today, we'll start with Appliances. First, the stove . 1. Take everything off of the stove. 2. Follow the manufacturer's directions to clean the oven/stove inside and out. Be sure to remove knobs, if possible, and clean the surface around them. I usually let them soak in the ...

You know how I love a good cleaning product!  Especially when I can mix it up from ingredients I already have on hand. Well, when reading a newsletter from one of my favorite blogs,  Grocery Shrink , one of Angela's readers shared a fabric and carpet cleaner that doesn't need to be rinsed out (most cleaners leave a dirt-attracting residue if not rinsed after cleaning).  I really liked that idea and decided to try it out.   One of my chores this week was to detail my car.  Inside and out. I found more than a few stains on the carpet and upholstery.   This was actually a rust mark. I mixed together 1/2 cup ammonia and 1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide and dipped a clean rag into it.  I simply scrubbed the stain with the damp rag and the stain came right up.  Amazing. All clean! Next up, carpet.  This was mud, I think,but who really knows.  Anyway, I used the same procedure as above and it worked. After just a ...

You've worked hard all month to get your bathroom organized. First, you took inventory of how your bathroom functions . Then, you organized the medicine cabinet . Then, you cleaned out the cabinets and drawers . Now that everything is purged and organized, how do you clean it and keep it that way?                                                                   I think the secret to a clean bathroom is to do it frequently.  Of course, no one wants to hear that, but the truth of the matter is that a little bit of mess is easier to clean than a whole lotta mess.  Follow me? Here are some tips to help you make the ta...

Whenever I take down my Christmas decorations, it is mandatory that I clean and polish everything in sight.  I can't rest until it's done - and it must by done before New Year's Day! As I'm trying to be careful about chemicals in my home and also trying to save money, I wanted to use a cleaner/polish that would meet those two qualifications.  I remembered a post by one of my favorite bloggers, Marian of Miss Mustard Seed .  She posted a recipe for a wood cleaner/polisher that she uses for her found treasures. It only uses two ingredients, which I already had on hand - oil and vinegar.  I shook the oil and vinegar (I changed her recipe a little and used 1/2 and 1/2) up in a jar and dipped my rag in it and carefully squeezed out the excess. Then I rubbed the cloth over the surface of my furniture and buffed it with a clean cotton rag.  It was hard to capture on camera, but if you look closely you can see where I polished on the l...