Speedcleaning

I have a deep desire to be the perfect homemaker, almost like a Stepford Wife, but not so robotic and perky! I'm thankful to the people out there in the blogging world, especially Ruth from the Sugarpie Farmhouse, who make homemaking seem so effortless and rewarding. Go check out her site!

Yesterday, I bought a book I'd been looking at for awhile, which I'm sure you've all seen before, called Speed Cleaning.

I wanted to see if I could make this whole housecleaning thing a bit quicker, or simpler, or something. Well I gotta say, I wasn't able to speed clean our kitchen in 15 minutes, but I managed the family room in that time! I got to try out my new steam mop, which did a great job, and my husband was pretty impressed at how gung-ho I was about it all. One of the best things about the book was it made me put all my cleaning liquids, sponges, brushes etc into one box as a cleaning kit. This worked really well, and at the end I put the crate into my laundry cupboard. For some people, that is probably a really OBVIOUS thing to do, but not so much for me!

A book I got last year, which started me on my journey of decluttering the house was Cut the Clutter by Cynthia Townley Ewer.

I really LOVE this book! It just has so many ideas for cleaning, organising and beautifying homes. And pretty pictures too! The website is brilliant as well, and has a heap of printable pages to make a Household Notebook (which holds all your budgets, cleaning schedules, addresses, and more.)

I'm hoping our house will be like a display home with heart by the end of this year. There's some renovating and garden overhauls to do too, so the job is a big one, but with books and blogs to help (as well as Ikea and Howards Storage) we might just get there!