30 Day House Cleaning Challenge: Projects #1-3

During the month of April, I will be participating in a 30-Day House Cleaning Challenge over at Money Saving Mom -Read more about it here). 
Find the printable list here

OK, ya'll.... this is hard for me, but I'm gonna do it. I am going to show you pictures of what my house looks like when it's messy. That is so embarrassing, but for this is for you fellow disorganized moms... you are not alone. I am not a "born organizer".  Now, don't get me wrong, I want my house to be spotless. I want it to be clean and organized. But it's hard for me.  I have to work really hard to keep the chaos under control. Now if I invite you over to my house, it's gonna be clean-ish. I mean it won't be spotless, but it won't look like a big mess... but what you don't realize is that I will clean non-stop for 2 days before you show up at my door... and I will be sort of grumpy at my kids when they mess up the freshly mopped floor... or whatever I just cleaned for an hour that they undid in a millisecond. So I am challenging myself to keep up with my house better this month and hopefully create some better habits in the process.

I'm getting off to a little bit of a late start, but here are my pictures of each challenge so far...

Project #1 Surface clean Living Room and Kitchen

In the Living Room, I picked up junk that didn't belong, dusted, and swept. (What you don't see is off to right there... just out of the shot is a chair full of clean laundry. My goal is to fold that tonight.)

Kitchen was basically a big wreck. I did the dishes, cleared off the counter, and wiped everything down.  And do you see my cabinets in the before shot? I always forget to close my cabinets... it drives my husband crazy. 
Project #2 Clean the Bathrooms

Ugh, one of least favorite chores. I put away some junk, wiped down the counters, cleaned the toilets, swept the floors, and then tossed the rugs in the washing machine.

Project #3 Surface clean the Bedrooms

Our Bedroom needs a make-over. I don't like much about it, but the worst is the paint color and we are renting, so... Anyway, I made the bed, swept the floor, and put away some things on my dresser. There is a lot more to do as far as organizing, but that will be for another day. (And yes, I have a bed rail on our bed. It's not for me, I haven't fallen out of bed in a long while. LOL. Penelope still comes to sleep with us every night about 2 or 3am and it's nice not to have to worry about her falling out of bed onto a hard wooden floor)

The girls bedroom was a big fat mess. There were toys, clothes, junk everywhere. Ella made her bed and then she helped me pick up all the toys and clothes. I dusted and swept and we were done.

Hudson's room was crazy messy. We made his bed, cleaned up a ton of toys. We got rid of a few toys, but I may be sneaking in to get rid of some more.

So there you have it Days 1 through 3... already things are looking much better around here. And I made sure the kids made their beds this morning and picked up their toys. Hopefully we can keep things in a little better order.