I thought I would update on my One Room Proper cleaning that I started awhile back.
I must say this has been the best discipline for me to clean this way. Even when I have been sick I still can keep up to a certain point. On good days I can make up for a day I did not clean.
I will explain a bit more on how I am cleaning. This is just my way but hope that it encourages you to think about your own personality and way you do things and try and figure out a cleaning plan that helps you.
First of all the photo above is our china cabinet I call walton because it is so tall. It looks quite different now because in December I did a major purge of dishes. It was time to do this and in the past people did not go thrifting and collecting old dishes. So I needed to put things in better order. I kept the dishes that we had that are lead free.
Moving a chair to clean behind....
In another post I brought up about my one room proper cleaning that I came up with to help discipline myself better with cleaning.
I will talk about it a bit more. What I did is divided the number of rooms we have in the house and I chose Monday through Friday to deep clean a room or rooms depending how it is divided up.
Monday I clean the kitchen and sitting area off the kitchen top to bottom. I wipe down the cabinets and do a good special clean up on those two areas. Tuesday I deep clean our bedroom, Wednesday is the Living room and porches, Thursday is the two guest rooms and laundry area and Friday is the bath and half.
What I have found is that when I deep clean a room I lightly go back over the room I did the day before because we have pets and to keep the pet hair in control this is needed. The third day I clean the Livingroom and while I have the vacuum out I deep vacuum the livingroom and then touch up the other two rooms and so on. It really does not take that much time.
Each week I concentrate on something I may have not gotten to as far as cleaning or straightening. Now I want to mention something here like I did in the other post. Deep cleaning is not decluttering. I am concentrating on cleaning, not taking the time at this point to declutter. I am removing the dirt from the window ledges and dusting the furniture and cleaning the floors and the headboards of the bed and such as that.
So this week on Tuesday our bedroom day I have a narrow shelf behind our bedroom door that holds crochet thread and I need a cabinet for it or a curtain but do not have that so I needed to dust the thread off so it did not collect. So I took the time this week to take each roll of thread and dust it and the shelf and put it back until I move this. But for now it is kept clean this way.
Since each week I am deep cleaning there is getting less and less to do in the room because slowly the clutter is going away.
Each week I find areas that need cleaning that I did not notice before... I take my soft brush to get some areas....
And my feather duster to get other areas.
When I go back over areas that were cleaned the day before I am now realizing I can light sweep to the area I am getting ready to clean and just knock it out that way. This whole thing is working itself out.
The main thing is when deep cleaning move things off what you are dusting such as table runners and take them out to shake them outside or wash them if needed.
It does not take that long when we are only doing one room...
The other day after I cleaned the room I noticed the girls harnesses and leashes and remembered that I should wash them so I just did it because week by week I can get around to doing those things now. By the way harnesses and collars really do get smelly. I do not think about when I give them their bath to wash their collar but I will start doing that.
So I want to explain the difference of my deep clean and Normal morning and evening tasks.
Deep clean for me is, clean whole room thoroughly including window ledges, dusting, wiping pictures and frames, vacuum under furniture and behind if needed. Mop, wipe down everything including baseboards and corners.
Normal morning tasks for me.
Boil water, make breakfast, prepare and pack lunch if out of town day for Charles. Get Pets up, potty and feed pets.Wash dishes. Change out Bird cage, water food and paper. Make bed or beds, straighten house, sweep and or vacuum, mop as needed. Food preparation.
What are my normal evening tasks? Fill water filter, set water boiler for next day. Wash dishes, turn down bed, put pets to bed, touch up and straighten house, evening bath.
I have learned when I am deep cleaning that I do not have to wash the baseboards every time, when I deep clean I know what I cleaned the last time I was in the room and how often it is needed so much of this cleaning goes very quickly.
I am getting a better routine with cooking because meals are more simple now. We are cutting out trying so many different dishes and soup is always good this time of year.
I was thinking today about how nice it is to have our home set to where if the power goes out we just do things the old way. We do not have to be uncomfortable because with our living studies we have learned to do things as they did in the past before electricity.
We are able to cook and clean and wash and dry our clothes and have lighting. You can do this too, just start learning to do things the old way. I have many post how to do this and you also can do your own research.
This above is how I learned to trim a wick, the curved shape of a fingernail. At first when putting in a new wick I have to use sharp scissors to get the initial shape. Before I knew how to trim a wick my wick would not burn properly as I cut it across but it would burn bright and in a few minutes it would dim and I would have to keep moving the wick up. I knew this was not right so I learned the curved method would burn nicely but it takes a bit of fiddly scissoring to get the right shape because any little off piece will cause it to burn oddly.
After that some older people will say use a calling card to clean it off and some say to not use a calling card. Since calling cards are no longer used I guess that would be a business card.
This post above is about the care of oil lamps so you can read from the professionals of 1900 and 1909 since this is the lighting they used because they did not have electricity.
This is about oil lamps because we study the past and live like the past. But you can use a safer lighting such as solar light bulbs if you have small children and do not feel safe with oil lamps. What is important is to have an alternative source during power outages.
We can make our home a wonderful restful, enjoyable place if we fill it with love and home cooked food. If we learn to sew and embroider, knit and crochet or many other skills we can make many special pieces that warm the home and reflect the home the way we feel it should be.
Meals do not have to be as complicated as we have been led to believe. Just start simple and before you know it you will have it figured out. Grandma Donna
