Spring Cleaning Weekend II

It was days 2 and 3 in our spring cleaning spectacular. We were so productive, but it was pretty exhausting.

**The Family Room**
The family room was expected to be the easiest of all of our rooms. It has the least clutter and no closets or cabinets. However, after working all afternoon on Saturday (for 3 hours), we realized the rest of the house was going to be quite a chore. It is SOOOOOO nice and clean now - so totally worth all the work!!

Here is the finished product... I went through all the DVDs, pulled them out, organized them, dusted them, and put them away. We have our Ghost Hunters Seasons on top of the TV for now. We plan to get a DVD tower for them in the next few weeks. Adam cleaned out the fireplace, scrubbed the tile by the fireplace (the dogs seem to use that area to puke while we're gone and the grout became quite stained), and put away Brutus' cage. We are hoping that he will not need it anymore!! We stopped using it after his last few escapes. We have left him loose in the house for the past two weeks with success, so keep your fingers crossed that he has finally stopped being destructive! The room is 100% better with just the cage being gone.
We moved all the furniture and swept under it and found a lot of Brutus' lost tennis balls. Plus, I'm really happy about my decision to give up my bedroom "night stand" that matched our family room end table. Now we have one on each end of the couch. Looks so nice and I like the lighting! We washed all the blankets and removed some of the dog agility equipment that was in the corner. Adam tightened the bolts on the end tables and TV tray stand. I also added a box with half of the dogs' toys in it in the family room. Their old overflowing toy box was in the living room. The boys have been quite happy that some of their toys are in the family room where they can show off while we're watching TV. Whew - I think that covers it!
We only had one snafu in the day. The Dyson "broke." We couldn't get the motor to run and the roller to spin on the bottom of the vacuum. Adam called the Dyson help line today and we'll just say it was an "operator error" and never speak of this incident again... the Dyson works and is not broken! Ha!

**Saturday Night Fun**
After a day of cleaning, we drove to The Dock Restaurant in Enon to meet some friends for dinner. Kristin arranged for Adam and his friends to surprise Nick since we hadn't seen them since they had their baby Evan in January. The food was SO delicious! I ate WAY too much - cheesesticks, onion peel, clam strips, salad, strawberry margarita, fries, and Reese Cup pie!! YUM!

Baby Evan is so adorable. He was so fascinated by all the lights and ceiling fans in the restaurant. Here is a photo of the new little family. :) And, the whole gang outside of the restaurant - Nick, Kelly, Nate, Maria, Adam (making a goofy face), me, and Brad.**The Dining Room**
Today, we tackled the Dining Room, which also shouldn't have been too, too bad. The only challenges would be the coat closet and apple cabinet. I started with the apple cabinet, where I store all the dogs' stuff. Here is a "before" shot of the mess:

And, the "after" shot:

The bandanas are organized by theme and nicely stacked. The medical supplies are organized, the brushes together, the costume props in their own corner, and I even went through ALL of the dogs' medical records and organized them by date. Ahh... nice and organized!

Next, it was onto the closet - yikes! Here is a "before" photo. It was hard to capture just how filthy the floor of the closet was - dog hair and dirt, shoes everywhere!And.... the "after" photo! We cleaned every single thing out and then cleaned everything before putting it back in. We eliminated some old coats we don't wear anymore to leave hangers for guests' coats. We organized the dog toys and scarves. The floor is clean and both vacuums and the mops fit in!Here's the finished right-hand side of the closet. We are also going to buy a shoe rack for our outdoor shoes and sandals. The cleaning products and seasonal decorations are organized on the shelf. So nice to have a clean closet!After cleaning the dining room, we moved onto...

**The Kitchen**

So, this is the disaster that we were looking at today... it was getting worse than usual with clutter on the counter tops. I also wanted to go through each and every cabinet.

We made it halfway through the kitchen today. Here's the progress:

Our junk drawer... junky no more! I can see the bottom and it's organized!

Our silverware is separated and organized!The spices and baking goods in our lazy susan are organized and categorized!

And my favorite part is the clean pantry!!! There's a floor in there! The food is all organized and categorized, and there's nothing on the floor! All the plastic Kroger bags that were scattered everywhere will be on their way to recycling and I now use the little apple print bag holder that we hung in the corner to store stray bags.

Other than that I cleaned out all of the cabinets under the counters, Adam moved the fridge and cleaned behind it and on top of it. He mopped all the floors. We still need to clean IN the fridge and all the upper cabinets. Then I can check another room off my list. I think we had to have spent at least 6 hours cleaning today. Whew- what a mess, but it's so nice to have it all cleaned.

I should be embarrassed of how messy my house has been for the last two years! Please forgive me! We are going to work SO hard now to keep it cleaned until next spring cleaning in a year!