Me: Did you see how beautiful and sparkling clean the bathroom is?
Sister: No…
Me: Well, that is how it SHOULD look when clean. Sparkling! Pristine!
Sister: Ok… I’ll take a mental picture when I go upstairs
Me: I took actual pictures.
This is my first before/after post. This is the bathroom I share with my sister. So it doesn’t stay clean because she forgets to clean it when she is expected to, then I reach my grossness limit and do it myself. I’ve never shared cleaning progress in my room because I rarely get it to look like I think an after picture should. I think I am overly ambitious, and my room is overly cluttered. Also I forget to take before pictures and would hate to show the world afters when they’re still pretty cluttered. But the bathroom is easy! I can do the whole thing in 15 minutes! AND YOU CAN TELL IT IS CLEAN!
So, before pictures. Here’s the sink, gross!
Toothpaste ick on faucet, idk what you call the scuzzy brown water stuff all along the back, and little black spots (lord help me it is probably death mold) starting to form on the drain.
also dirty washcloths (got Sister to remove a pile of what I think was 10 or so of them a few days ago) and dusty counter top. How one side gets slimy while the other gets dusty is that the house has a gentle slope to the back.
And then after photos! Here we have the sink, sparkling!
No slimy bits! No death mold! SHINY FAUCET!
I would also show you the pretty clean mirror above, but camera angles/flash make that impractical.
Because of the shape and size of the bathroom, you’ll have to trust me that the rest is cleaner now than before; the pictures fail to demonstrate the difference, with the exception of the window in the shower, which was growing some kind of horrible bacterial growth along the bottom edge, right where you are supposed to push down to close it. Yuck.
Also old razors. Here’s some close up yuck:
More close up yuck:
This was the part that skeeved me out the most. The slime bacteria growth what-have-you is pink. PINK.
After cleaning:
Clean! Sparkling! Not quite but close to pristine!
See how much better that looks?!?!
i’ve lived in this house since sixth grade and i’m currently a junior in college. i clean my bathroom counter every now and then, but over the years i’ve just accumulated so much stuff and i’ve never really dealt with it…. until now. keep in mind that not only did i never finish unpacking from recently moving out of my apartment, but i also just got back from a trip to the mountains so there’s that stuff laying around too. i’m also just a packrat. don’t judge me.
behold, The Great Bathroom Unfucking of 2013:
[after the break]
Feeling lazy, but your bathtub and shower are gross? Fill the tub up with hot water and some cleaner, let it sit, then use your mop to scrub the walls and tub. So much easier than a sponge or a scrub brush.
My bathroom needed to be done before I left to go home for the break, and it seemed like it would take forever to put stuff away and clean, but it only took about 30 minutes.
Before and after-
megachiropteran Asks:
unfuckyourhabitat Said:
Vinegar spray! Just spray the surface and let it sit as long as you can, then rinse. For stubborn areas, try a paste of Comet or Barkeepers Friend, let it sit, and then rinse. Repeating the vinegar spray frequently should let you avoid scrubbing.
There were two 20/10s on my To Do list for today.
First, the spare bedroom / my sewing room:
I’ve been working on making Christmas gifts, in particular a large quilted wall-hanging for my mother, and so my workspace has been just getting messier and messier because I “don’t have time to tidy it”. Since I know I work better, faster, and am less prone to screwing things up and making mistakes if the environment I’m working in is neat and tidy, I scheduled a 20/10 for this room *before* sitting down to work on my projects today.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
YES! All this done in just ONE 20/10, and I put everything away properly where it belonged, I didn’t just shove the crap into a closet or under the bed! The fabric, etc. that’s on the desk and ironing board in the “After” pictures is what I’m using for the current project only, everything else has been put away.
And because I had cleared off the bed, I was able to lay out my project for the first time to see what it was going to look like:
My other 20/10 was part of my on-going effort to get the house clean in time for the holidays, when my family is coming for Christmas dinner. I’ve been working in the bathroom this week, and today’s task was to clean the mould out of the window sill & frame. Our house was built as an air-tight, but we don’t run it as one, because we can’t afford to run the air-conditioner all summer. Consequently we have mould problems. I hate de-moulding the windowsills (and every windowsill in the house needs doing regularly *sigh*) partly because “Mould - ICK” partly because the window frames have a bunch of little cracks and crannies that I can never get clean, and partly because I know it;s just going to get gross again.
So I promised myself a caramel brownie left over from craft group last night after I cleaned the bathroom windowsill, and that turned out to be enough incentive:
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
And since it actually took LESS than 20 minutes, I drain-volcanoed the bathroom sink while I was in there!
And the caramel brownie was delicious :)
Counter, drawers, tub, and shower.
I want to thank Unfuck Your Habitat. Because of them my bathroom is beautiful (minus the part where we still need to repair then paint the walls and rehang the mirror… why yes, we gutted the bathroom too). Everything is put away: makeup, hairbrushes and hairclips, first aid stuff, soap. My menstrual supplies are no longer on the floor next to the toilet making my brother uncomfortable. I tend to skip my breaks, but the 20/10 thing makes it easier to get started. Being able to stop, knowing that I don’t have to tackle the whole mess at once, makes it easier to start. For sorting out the drawers I actually took the two “worst” drawers (makeup and hair) with me to a friend’s house and sat on the floor chatting while I sorted. It was really nice.
Aside: hanging out with people helps me clean. I don’t want THEM to clean because that makes me feel guilty. It’s my mess. But it’s really nice to have company and having someone there with me keeps me on-task, off the internet and away from an hour-long digression playing with whatever-it-is I just picked up. Try inviting a friend over to listen to music and chat while you deal with the floordrobe: if you have a good friend who’ll remind you whenever you stop working, it’s productively distracting.
My bedroom isn’t perfect, but it’s better. The “new” messy is much, much cleaner than the old one: the floor is clear, the flat surfaces have less than half the clutter on them that they used to, and my shoes are always put away (except for the one sneaker that props the door open, so my elderly dog doesn’t shut the door and have an existential crisis). There’s a lot of room for improvement, but the most exciting thing is that there hasn’t been any backsliding. I got the room clean(er) in September and the bathroom in October, and they stayed that way, even after going on two trips. I unpacked my shit and put it all away. Both times. The sheets are changed once a week, and the breakthrough there was buying a second set of sheets. Free from the trials of is-there-or-isn’t-there-a-laundry-monster, I no longer have to wait for things to wash and dry before I remake my bed. Strip the first set, remake with the second set, then wash the first set (even if I wash it the next day) and put it away.
I don’t have “before” pictures of the bathroom, but you all know what a crowded, cluttered bathroom looks like. Here are the afters:
The boxes are renovation stuff. For the first time ever most of the crap on the counter is MY BROTHER’S, HA.
Bedroom pics (before, during, and after) will follow when it’s actually clean.
Other things UfYH’s 20/10 timer helped me do:
- finish writing assignments I’d really rather have put off forever
- move two fish tanks, twice (isn’t renovation fun)
- get up and get moving and focus on one thing, even when the list fills more than one page.
I am still surprised at how fast stuff goes when I finally buckle down and DO IT. Amazed. Even when I know it’s going to be awful, it never takes as long as I think it will. I may always be surprised at this.
See? This started out whining, then turned into a list of what I’ve done. :)
NOW I am off to clean that cat box, slay the laundry monster (again), and take a shower.
Sweep or dust mop your bathroom floor, then mop it, paying careful attention to around the toilet and in the corners.
Bonus: Change out your bathmat and hand towels for clean ones.
Today was my first day of vacation (for two weeks!) so I decided to start it off right by unfucking some invisible spaces: some cupboards, the front hall closet and (*shudder*) the refrigerator.
The front hall closet was mostly pulling stuff out, vacuuming and putting stuff back in a more ordered way. Also I emptied out the Big Bin of Cables and Electronics Bits and bagged them to go to the recycling depot. There’s actually a big Pile of Stuff to Go for the next time I visit Mum, including still-sealed dry goods that are going to be donated.
I didn’t get befores of the cupboards or the fridge, because when I actually opened the fridge I felt compelled to start cleaning immediately, and then I was carried on that momentum all the way through the kitchen cupboards, so.
And then I wiped down the bathroom and kitchen counters and did a drain volcano in the kitchen, which was, as always, immensely satisfying.
\o/ for vacation productivity!
Ok, so, my roommates left on vacation, and they had washed the dogs (two beagles) in the bathtub and didn’t clean it before they left. I had a party last night for Halloween, so I needed to clean it. It was SUPER GROSS…I wasn’t entirely sure how I was gonna approach it. I would’ve just thrown glass cleaner at it and scrubbed while not gagging before, but having heard of the wonders of Baking Soda and Vinegar from UFYH, I elected to try it out.
This is the before shot:
Pretty gross, right?
After having sprinkled the bottom of the tub with baking soda and pouring vinegar all over it (and producing an AWESOME sound:D) I rinsed the tub with the shower head and wiped the surface down lightly with a paper towel, and viola,
A CLEAN TUB! That tub hasn’t been THAT white since we moved in this house in January. I am SO PROUD OF MYSELF!!! I even did a drain bomb to make myself happy after as a reward (ooooo messy chemistryyyyy)
Also, I scrubbed the sink. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a before photo, but here is the after.
Yussssss. That sink also hasn’t been that white since we moved in, either. SO PROUD! Cans I has a gif now?
mustangsally78 Asks:
unfuckyourhabitat Said:
There are a few things you can try. First, for any of them, I’d suggest turning off the water to the toilet and flushing it so you’re dealing with an empty bowl. Then either make a paste with the BKF or saturate some paper towels with vinegar or CLR (one or the other! Don’t do them all at the same time!) and let it sit for as long as possible, overnight if you can. Don’t flush the paper towels. Thn try scrubbing the stain away with a stiff-bristled cleaning brush.
If that doesn’t work, you can use a pumice stone on porcelain (but not on newer fiberglass toilets). Start with an empty bowl, wet the pumice, then use light pressure to buff the stain. Be aware, however, that doing this may cause small scratches on the bowl’s surface. While you won’t be able to see these scratches when the bowl is filled with water, it will make stains develop more quickly, so you’ll need to be vigilant about stain prevention.
I know, I know, I still haven’t put up those before-and-afters from the kitchen… But yesterday, my mother and I finally unfucked the space under the bathroom sink! It was jammed full of all kinds of random crap, with the useful necessary things hidden behind the ancient evil-smelling shower gels and lotions*, and the hairdryer jumbled on top so that the cord would make everything else fall out of the cabinet if you tried to take it out.
*You can take this to mean “ancient and evil-smelling,” or “smelling of ancient evil.” Either interpretation is but a faint approximation of the true horror of outdated bath products.And now it’s nice and neat and the bathroom-cleaning supplies are under the bathroom sink instead of in the kitchen closet! Huzzay! (That’s the nineteenth-century version of “hooray”. I like it better.)
(Even more unfuckery under the cut, including a dresser drawer stuffed full of miscellaneous papers that gave me anxiety for three years. If this gets on the UfYH blog, I’d like a hug gif, please.)
bitchslap-barbie Asks:
unfuckyourhabitat Said:
Hydrogen peroxide? OxiClean? Dish soap? Make a paste with Comet and water and let it sit a few hours, then attack with a stiff scrub brush and rinse?
tyger-lily Asks:
unfuckyourhabitat Said:
Sounds like hard water stains or mineral deposits, so something like CLR or even just straight vinegar might help where bleach hasn’t.
tacosuplex Asks:
unfuckyourhabitat Said:
A weak bleach solution (1:10) in a spray bottle and some scrubbing with a scrub brush (gloves and ventilation, people!) should help battle what’s there. Preventing it from forming again requires diligence in keeping the moisture low. So either a dehumidifier, a fan, open windows, and/or wiping down the shower after each use will go a long way. Regular cleaning, too.
