The great cleaning tips post

This weekend I finished painting my office walls. I decided that since painting the bedroom was such a huge project, this time, I'd take the room a wall at a time -- do all the moving of objects one section each, prep, etc., which wouldn't leave me feeling next to dead. One of the nice things about painting, besides the pep that a new coat of paint, especially a great color, will give you is that you also end up having to clean things that have been gathering dust bunnies the size of Irish wolfhounds behind them, and clean the walls, etc. The flip side is that you also see how grungy and dingy the other rooms look.

I've been home now all day for work for such a long time that I was sick to death of the wretched paint we'd put in here when I first moved in (lesson #1 -- never let men pick paint unless they're gay). Even though my office is still terrible, I like being in here now because the color is so pleasing to me. The home world feels clean and new and beautiful. Unfortunately, now I have to paint the rest of the house, because it all looks so faded and neglected. Lesson #2 -- once you start painting, you have to update everything.

The same goes for cleaning. A long time ago, sisabet posted a request for people's favorite cleaning stuff, and I responded with a couple of mine. When I cleaned the kitchen walls recently so I could put up some shelves, once I started, I saw how filthy everything was, and I ended up spending the day washing all the walls and the ceiling. You clean a little spot, and you have to do the rest. Yesterday I did this for the bathroom: Places with a lot of moisture tend to create a kind of magnet for dust particles, pet hair, etc, and that can really darken and grunge up your paint job (not to mention make a haven for mold and other icky stuff). After talking about my cleaning and organizing frenzy lately (and that's another thing that makes you find out just how unclean even a seemingly clean house can really be -- getting organized and putting stuff in boxes and bins), a couple people I know asked me what I use and what I've been doing. I suck at painting, I really do, but someone else asked me for painting advice. I thought I'd write it all down in case anyone else is interested in this -- it's spring, after all! (I'll tackle painting separately.) And I don't know about other people, but clean brightens my *mood*, too, not just my walls or floors. I feel so much better when I'm in the bathroom now -- a shiny new toilet seat cover I just installed, which takes ten minutes to put in, clean walls and lights, an organizing tray for the essentials on top of the toilet tank, and suddenly it's a lovely room again.

One of the best bonuses about a cleaning binge, besides reduced allergens, bacteria, likelihood of pests, etc.? It's fantastic exercise, and so is painting.

( Cleaner than clean: Everything I've learned about cleanup and organization )