Archive for August, 2006
Eliminating Clutter
August 7th, 2006
Housekeeping tip #1 – Eliminating Clutter
A neat friend
Roger, a bachelor friend of mine, always had a perfectly clean apartment. Everything was in place, all the time. He shared with me that his step-mother gave him a great tip to help him for his whole life.
The tip
She told him that it’s easier to put something away when it’s still in your hand. Coming back to clean something up later only makes more work and the house is messy in the mean time. I’ve been working on implementing this for years.
It’s a challenge with children
I’m much better but with children it’s hard to put away EVERYTHING that’s in my hands when we walk in the door. I’ve got shoes, extra clothes, groceries, backpack, trash, child, etc. in my arms. I know, I know, get the kids to put their own stuff away. I’m working on that, actually.
I must be doing something right
The little one, five-years-old now, actually repeated one of my mantras to me last week. She said something like this, "I put my things away when I was done with them because if my friends and I put our things away when we’re done with them then my room will always be clean and I’ll know where to find my toys because they will be where they are supposed to be." Oh, my, did that blow my mind: my words coming out of her mouth as if they were her revelation! Hey, this stuff works.
Organized Closet and less time doing laundry
August 7th, 2006
Housekeeping tip #2 – Organized Closet and less time doing laundry
I used to be organized as a child and developed many creative ideas to save time and have a neat room at the same time. Some things have stayed with me including keeping my coat hangers organized in my closet.
How it works for me
When I take something out of my closet I take out the hanger out with it. Then I put the hanger at the end of the closet, whichever end is closer, so they are all together in one place. When I need hangers to hang up my laundry they are all in one (or two) place in my closet, at the ends, and I just take them out at once. This actually takes less time than digging through the closet every laundry day to retrieve the hangers. It also makes my closet look nicer when it isn’t laundry day.
Just for fun check out these hangers at Amazon.com Natural Wood Hangers – 30-pk.
Posted in Dawn's brilliant ideas
Clean Kitchen Towels
August 7th, 2006
Housekeeping tip #3
I like to replace my kitchen towels each day so we are always using a clean one. With more than one person using the kitchen I never knew if the kitchen towel was clean or used from yesterday. I developed a method that is almost fool-proof. Our kitchen’s main color is green with blue accents. I have sixteen towels, enough for two weeks, one extra for washing day, and one more just in case. Two of the towels are blue, seven are green with white lines, and seven are white with green lines.
My method
When I’m folding the towels I put the two blue ones on the bottom and alternate the others on top. That way I know if the towel has been changed from the day before. Today we are using a white one with green lines and I know it’s clean because yesterday we used a green one with white lines. When I get down to the blue ones I know I have a day wash them before I run out. How’s that?
Adapting this to you
If you have two different kinds of towels you can alternate them and have one or two that are completely different. The completely different one (or two) you can place at the bottom of your pile to warn you when it’s getting close to wash day.
View Product Details at Amazon.com for: Floursack Towels – Leaf Series