Archive | HOME AND GARDEN

Between raising a family, keeping a household, building two businesses, and trying to have a social life – having a home that is always organized and clean can seem impossible. Over the years, I have always received compliments on how clean and organized my home is – usually followed by questions of how I have time to do it. For me a home that is clean and organized has much more to do with my personal sanity than it does for impressing others. I learned very early in my marriage that if my home is always clean and organized that I am able to get more things done in life. Which means that I don’t have to spend any time on the weekends or evening cleanings. I want all of my free time to be just that – free. The key to having a home that is always clean and organized is simple, it’s consistency. Read on to learn my 6 secrets to keeping a clean, organized and green home.

#1: Everything In It’s Place
The first rule to having a home that is always clean and organized is to assign a place for everything in your home. Start by asking yourself whether you use, need or love each item – if it doesn’t fit into any of those categories, get rid of it. Everything in our home has a spot – from books, to crafting supplies, tools, and toiletries – every single cabinet, closet and drawer is organized – it makes it really easy to find anything that I need in just a few seconds, saving me a lot of time. This also saves me money, because I always know at a glance if we need more deodorant, nails, or light bulbs.

#2: Chores for Everyone
Every person in your family should have a list of chores that they are responsible for completing each day. In our home, Eben takes care of the laundry, pet duties, dishes and a few other things. The mister is responsible for making all of our meals, grocery shopping and the garage. I take care of everything else including the errands, vacuuming, dusting, organizing, cleaning the kitchen, living room and bathrooms. It makes it a lot easier to keep the home clean and organized when everyone in the home is part of the process.

#3: Clean Up as You Go
Whether I am working on a work project, recipe, or craft I clean up as I go. As soon as I am finished with an item, I put it away. When I am finished with dishes, I load them in the dishwasher. If I spill something, I clean it up immediately. I have also instilled this lesson in Eben, when he is finished playing with one thing, he puts it away before getting something else out. If he is done reading a book, it goes back on the bookshelf when he grabs another. This goes along with #1, if you put it back where it belongs immediately, you will always know where it is and everything will stay relatively clean.

#4: Clean After Use
I like to keep my green cleaning supplies where they are needed and use them often. For example, I keep a bottle of green cleaner in the shower and tub and then spritz everything down every couple of days. I keep a bottle of green glass cleaner in each bathroom and spritz down the mirrors and sinks everyday. I keep a bottle of green toilet cleaner near the toilets and spritz them down as well. It ensures that the dirtiest parts of our home are always clean and healthy. And I never have to spend a whole day or afternoon deep-cleaning our home.

#5: A Load A Day
I have Eben do a load of laundry and dishes every day or as soon as the washer is full. He is then responsibly for getting the clothes into the dryer and folding it and putting the dishes away too. We never have a laundry room stacked with dirty clothes, or a kitchen sink brimming with last night’s dinner plates. We don’t have a need for an insane amount of clothing, linens or dishes because everything that we own is usually either being used or clean and put away.

#6: Unpack + Put Away Immediately
We venture out to the beach or swimming pool almost every day and we always take a huge beach bag stuffed full of towels, books, snacks, hats, water bottles and other items. When we get home I always feel like leaving that bag by the front door. Instead, I carry it up and immediately unpack it. The dirty dishes and water bottles are put in the dishwasher, uneaten snacks go back in the pantry, books go back on the bookshelf and the wet towels and swimsuits go into the dryer. This has saved us from mildewy swimsuits and towels, ruined books and wasted foods. This tip is also great for backpacks and lunchboxes when school is back in session. You immediately see any permission slips or homework and you can sometimes save an uneaten snack before the lunchbox icepack completely melts.

Stay tuned — coming up tomorrow is how I speed clean our home everyday. It takes me less than 1/2 hour but the house is super sparkling when I am done. Followed, later in the week on how I can deep clean the entire house top to bottom in 85 minutes. I do this usually about twice a month – it makes keeping up with the 6 steps above a breeze. 

Do you have secrets to keeping a house clean, organized and green? I would love to hear them.

In a society where carbon emissions and global warming are major issues, it is becoming increasingly important for each household to do their part of ‘being green’. Whether this is recycling more, using the car less or buying locally, there are many ways to become more eco-friendly. Furnishing a home isn’t something that people associate with helping the environment; however, it can make a huge difference and it doesn’t mean that you have to forsake style in order to enjoy greener living. From sofa beds to eco-friendly kitchens, searching around for the best in eco-friendly furnishings can reap rewards.

How does eco-friendly furniture help?

There are plenty of reasons why eco-friendly furniture can help the environment, the first being the difference in the materials used. Avoid heavily varnished or painted goods, or ones that have been treated with toxic substances, as these will release gases and chemicals into the atmosphere. Choose certified sustainable products, which means that the wood or fabric has been harvested in a way that doesn’t damage the environment or increase carbon emissions during production. There are different ways of creating eco-friendly materials such as recycling or ‘up-cycling’ where an old product is made into a new one, or old woods are broken down to build new furniture. Reclaimed woods do not originate from trees chopped down just to make the furniture, but have been sourced by other means such as those that fall naturally.

Where can I buy it?

There are plenty of options when it comes to sourcing eco-friendly furniture, whether it is through online stores or brick and mortar stores in your local neighborhood. Other great sources include checking out Craigslist, eBay, and your local thrift shops. We recently did a patio makeover using pieces of furniture that we already owned, along with a great table that we found on Craigslist!) Vintage has also made a massive comeback in recent years, and the beauty of reclaimed and recycled furniture has meant that there is an ever-increasing number of possibilities. Eco-friendly furniture doesn’t have to be expensive, and even browsing free recycling websites (such as Freecycle) can reveal some gorgeous pieces, which have still got a long lease of life for the next owner.

When looking for new items of furniture, eco-friendly may not be the most obvious of solutions, but it is a way to assist in helping the environment. Whether it is bought from a specialist supplier of reclaimed wood, or a local crafts-person who has recycled an old item, eco-friendly furniture can be both affordable and stylish without damaging the future.

This guest post was provided by Tesco. 

Hello, Friends! How was your Memorial Day weekend? Were you able to spend the weekend with family and friends. We spent the weekend cleaning our old home and moving into our new one. While this wasn’t a long distance move for us – it was still pretty time consuming! We are almost completely moved in – the only things left to do are hang the curtains and organize the garage. Hooray!

Initially, I was concerned with the size of our new home, it is 1/2 the size of our last home and the smallest home that we have lived in since the mister and I married. This was deliberate, we wanted to downsize and have been talking about it forever. And while saying you want to downsize is very fine and dandy, actually doing it is quite another thing. I quickly realized that not all of our furniture or belongings would fit into our new space – so it was time to do a lot of editing. It felt good to donate a large portion of items to our local shelter and it’s funny how you really don’t miss “things” as much as you think that you would. We also found several simple creative ways to maximize our space – I will be sharing these ideas soon.

The best parts of downsizing so far include; being super close to Eben’s school, the mister’s work and friends (our commute has almost completely disappeared), a small two bedroom home takes just a few minutes each morning and evening to tidy up (not to mention heat and cool – our first electric bill just came – 1/2 the price of our last home and our large front patio is quickly becoming my favorite space, watch for that makeover to come soon as well.

How was your weekend? Did you move too – I hear that Memorial Day weekend is the busiest moving weekend of the year! I would love to hear how you are doing – what adventures lay ahead for you?

Full Disclosure: This is a sponsored post written by Sweet Greens – thank you for supporting the companies that keep Sweet Greens in business, I really appreciate it!