The Stay Home Diaries – Tips to organise & clean your home over the next 3 weeks

It’s day 2 of the Government lockdown in the UK and I am working from home with my two children (3 year old son and 5 year old daughter), plus 40 year old husband. We are all confined to our house for the next three weeks and it’s terrifying. By the end of day 1, it seemed that all of us eating, working, playing in a single space resulted in the combined destructive power of a mega tsunami and the western worlds nuclear arsenal. Waking up this morning I knew I had two choices, either go through the next 3 weeks with a Wake – trash – clean – repeat cycle and hate my life or come up with some sort of plan. I should know a thing or two about cleaning and tidying, I work for a cleaning company after all.

 So here are my Stay Home Diaries to help us and our homes survive lockdown.

Day 2: Tackling the laundry  

I’m starting with laundry today because while we’re not leaving the house, somehow we’re going through an enormous amount of clothes, towels and bed linen.  I hate doing laundry with a passion. You’re never really done; it involves a lot of steps and something is always forgotten which means the hamper is never clear – ever.  I’ve scoured the net and found these 5 handy tips to help us all keep on top of laundry. I’ve done steps 1&2 yesterday, so nailing laundry at the moment.

1. Wash one load of laundry everyday – this includes the entire process from washing, hanging, folding & putting away. Really, when else would we have the time to do so? Also, since the kids are now at home – get them involved too, my 3 year old loves putting the clothes in the machine so that’s his job and my daughter is now an expert (she only did it once)  at separating colour from whites. So the process yesterday was daughter separates (with check from mummy), son loaded and I placed detergent and set the machine. We all then washed our hands and husband yet to contribute.
2. Prepare and load the washing before you use it. This is an old trick of mine; I usually load the washing machine, add the detergent then set a timer of when I know I’m free to hang the clothes to dry. Yesterday we loaded and set it all up first thing in the morning but planned the load to finish when the kids were having lunch so I can do it in peace. Husband yet to contribute.    
3. Clean and Sanitize the wash drum. Now I’m going to be honest, I’ve never done this. really who out there cleans their washing machine? I’ve written about how important it is, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I practiced what preached. To be fair this is possibly the best time to start cleaning your washing machine. So after tea, husband was assigned to clean our washing machine. Here’s how he did it, pour two pints of white vinegar into the wash drum with a cup of baking soda. Use a stiff nylon brush and some vinegar to scrub the interior of the wash drum. At the hottest temperature setting, run a wash cycle with this cleaning solution in an empty washer. Once done, leave door open for a little while.
4. Currently after a couple of loads, I clean and sanitise the actual washing machine from the outside. Now more than ever it is important to sanitise everything commonly touched and often our utility machines get forgotten. First clean the door, top and sides of the washing machine with a sponge and soapy water then disinfect to sanitise. Top tip don’t forget to do the same for the rubber bit inside the door.
5. Continue to have a ‘washing day’ but make that for your towels and bedding. Usually it’s the big items that take a lot of space in our hampers and clutter the entire utility room making it look messy. Mine will be this Sunday – if I make it until then.

kanikasrivastava

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