January/February Cure

Apartment Therapy has a yearly tradition of a "Cure" for your home. This event happens in January, and the aim is to help you get a more functional and clean home. I have done it 1,5 times before, and thought it was time to try it again this year. There are two main points to the cure: cleaning and organizing.

Cleaning
There are areas that are easy and quick to clean in a small apartment, and others that are easy to forget, or simply ignore. This cure has helped get to those dreaded areas like inside the bathroom cabinet, the dusty bookshelf, and the top of the greasy ceiling fan. It feels great to know that everything is clean, not just the floor and surfaces.

Organizing
Now that I am not living alone any longer, there is even less space for what we own. It is crucial to take inventory quite often and get rid of what we don´t need any longer. The best cure is of course to not let much new into the house, but it still happens. Especially with all the wonderful wedding gifts we have received (and love), I try to let them replace something instead of add it to our collections. "One item out for every item in" is a good rule I try to follow.

Improvements
Cleaning and organizing can prove to be incredible improvement in themselves, but sometimes it takes a little extra for a space to go from blaah to great. I have not taken on projects like that this time around, though I would love to get a new color and handles on our kitchen cabinets. Hanging some new pictures might be the thing instead.


Accomplishments so far: 
- Deep cleaning the kitchen. Including getting new filters for the kitchen fan and installing them.
- Deep cleaning the living room. There was cobweb on the ceiling! With 5 meters from floor to ceiling it is not an easy feat to clean this room. Now I have vacuumed those exposed beams, and the dust on them is no longer exposed. For the first time, I also washed my curtains. Maybe I shouldnt have, because they are now almost 10 cm shorter!
- Deep cleaning the bedroom. Moved a lamp in here as well. We redid our bedroom this fall, so there was not much work that needed to be done. I go through my clothes twice a year when I switch seasonal items, so my closet is under control.
- Got rid of some things we don´t use, including kitchen items, books and more. These were given to friends or a second hand store, unless they were too worn out and thrown away.
- Digital decluttering. I have thousands and thousands of pictures and emails that I have never gone through. I started on this huge job, and have deleted hundreds of blurry and bad pictures already, but there is still a long way to go. Same with my inbox. It needs a serious detox.

I was sick for a few days in January, so I fell behind with some of the tasks, and have decided to spend February finishing up most of what is left.

To do in February: 
- Organize the hallway closet. This is the only real storage space we have, and it houses all our coats and shoes, plus tools, cleaning supplies and all kinds of odds and ends. It needs to be more functional for sure!
- Purge, clean and tidy the loft bedroom/craft space. Craft supplies, need I say more?
- Finish my project of hanging a Peruvian blanket. 
- Deep clean the bathroom. It should have been done a while ago, so no more delays now!
- Get a lamp for the balcony. So we can see the front door on dark winter nights.
- Start on a family picture gallery wall!
- Continue deleting digital files.

Anyone else doing this cure? Or interested in improving their home?
Here is the link to all the posts - it is never too late to start!