project major springclean : : the kitchen

So I planned for a little more than I could finish and after a whole day of organizing, I barely finished two of the four areas I meant to accomplish. What I did accomplish though, was thoroughly encouraging to see.

The HQ is a huge mess for now as you can see...

It's loaded with a bajillion things that I will need to get rid of soon.

I mean, look at the bajillion things that are starting to load up on my sell off/give away table...

Okay, except those baskets, which I intend to find good purposes for.
But still, the going has been great!

On to the report...

Before and Afters! :)

What a difference! :)

These tasks were mainly a big game of sorting, matching, and getting rid of all the chipped, discoloured and downright ugly things that we have in our cabinet. Trust me, it wasn't easy though. I should definitely have taken a picture of the in-between when there was crockery all over the place! Thank goodness I found help with the sister. We rocked this project big time.

I unfortunately didn't take a before-picture of another two cabinets that I went through as well (you just have to imagine that they were stuffed full of tons of things), but the results are worth showing...

I feel so awesome now. 

I swear these before-and-after pictures are priceless.

Can't wait to get the pictures for freecycling/selling up too. 

I'm getting a bit nervous too as time is running out and the rest of the family will be home soon. I need to work faster! I need to squeeze out every bit of time as possible!

Random thoughts on the side:

I learned quite a lot of things today from the cleaning spree including...

1. When the government fumigates the rubbish chutes to kill the insects, the insects don't die instantly. Instead, they get scared and, in their fear, the roaches and their younglings scurry to find every crack between your chute and the wall to get away from the fumes. They do eventually die though - resting peacefully in some area around the chute in your house.
   

2. The peaceful dying of roaches and their younglings in one's house is annoying. But it's a lot more annoying when you actually have a cabinet built around the chute - meaning they could be resting peacefully in there for a long time till you find their carcasses...that have probably been there long enough for the ants to get at them. Sure, it's easier to clean up shells of dead insect bodies, but it's still gross.
   

3. I've found out today that it's possible to have your thigh resting on a shell of a dead roach for a whole half hour without noticing it when you're really focused on organizing. 
   

4. I've also found that it's not a pleasant experience to find out things like that half an hour later.
   

5. Even worse, there's something very repulsive about getting tiny dried-up roach younglings under your fingernails. It does help to try to psyche yourself that the feeling is kinda the same as digging your fingers into sand and having the little sand bits stuck there..except that sand is not a blackish colour, and without legs..six tiny legs each. The reframing does help...the tiniest bit. But nothing's going to stop me from wearing gloves tomorrow.
   

   
   
   Who ever said cleaning was an easy job? Ants, nestings, carcasses of dead roaches and their younglings...I think I'm slowly developing a very high tolerance for all things gross.
   

project major springclean

So, with most of the family gone, I've finally embarked on a major springclean. I now have approximately one week to work on all the shared spaces (including the kitchen, a store room downstairs, the living room, and a couple of other major areas that I wouldn't be able to work on otherwise).


The whole house is now a whirlwind of things after a mere two days of attacks and I'm surprised how physically draining it can get...but the fruits of the labour will be worth it!

First, welcome to my HQ:

Yes, I'm superbly proud of it. :)

Everything is in place for a major springclean! There are also other areas that I didn't mark out here - of things to throw away (which is basically an area with one big black trash bag and a stack of spares), and things to give away (of which includes clothes which will be donated to families in Manila on an upcoming collection shipment on the 15th of October).

To get an idea of what I've been working on the past two days and will finish by today...

Here are pictures from a room that I've been so concerned about.Everything goes here when we lack space. It's pretty much a storeroom, and goodness knows how disorganized it is!

Yes, I know it kinda-sorta looks organized, but it's just a whole load of clutter everywhere...and it's seriously floor-to-ceiling clutter. There's tons of stuff that I need to get rid of here. I spent quite a bit of time here yesterday and found disintegrated plastic, strange bottles of unidentified liquids/powders, and even an ant/termite nesting area that disintegrated two poorly storage wooden steamers. And we're talking about them being stored in unsealed medium sized plastic bags - of which each had two distintegrated wooden steamers which had about one or two inches of wooddust which the insects bit through for their nesting...which were housing little insecty eggs. 0_o Yes, it was very disturbing to clean through. It gave me a lot of job satisfaction when I did finally get rid of them though.

And did you spot it?

There...in the back..in the cabinet...

Told you we had another stash somewhere. :)

Will have to clear this out too considering that there are half-drunk bottles and that garlic vinegar has been so vinegarized that there are little black particles floating around it now. 

Will probably bring the stash upstairs down here as well.

Alright, enough chatting, I've got loads to do today...

including going through these cabinets.

The kitchen is going to be quite a feat, but I can't wait to get things sorted.

Maybe I'll even be able to convince the other siblings to lend a hand...maybe.

Wish me luck! 

(or at least perserverance... and in the case of another insect nesting of some sort, courage would probably be good.)

in charge for two weeks

I know I haven't quite been posting as regularly and as predictably as I would love to, but so many changes have been happening in these few weeks. Even now, I've just gotten back from the airport - sending off the sister, househelper, and the parents on their trip to Israel over the next two weeks. As I got back to a dark, empty house I just realized that I now am in charge of a whole house along with the care of the two younger siblings for the next two weeks. Not to mention that there's an overwhelming amount of work to take care of.


Now that my househelper has gone off with them, I need to put some preemptive measures in place to minimize washing, cooking, and eating of all sorts of rubbishy food for the sake of "convenience". Tonight I'm going to pull out items from the pantry and plan some meals. I don't want the siblings to go on some crazy spending spree on food outside that's filled with all sorts of trash. We're going to go on disposables for two weeks and I'm going to pack away the cups so that each of us are responsible to live on ONE cup each. Use it, wash it. That should do it.

These two weeks are also going to be crazy organizing weeks for me as I take the opportunity (and space) to clear out things in the house that I couldn't tackle because I'd get in someone else's way. It's seriously not easy living with 6 other people in a small space. But now that most of everyone's gone, I'm going to try to make some money out of the clutter... once I figure ebay out. Prollz going to freecycle quite a few things too. Hopefully, I'll be as productive as I envision in my mind to be. *fingers crossed*

Wish me luck!