Becoming Clean for Spring

I have decided to participate in Money Saving Mom's spring cleaning challenge. It's already Friday, and I'm a bit behind on getting my posts up, but I want to share my efforts anyway.

The first day's project was to clean your kitchen and living room areas.  Cleaning these two areas together seems natural to me, as they are all one room. We have a vaulted ceiling, and the kitchen sink area opens up into the living room.  Makes doing dishes fun, since I can see the TV....but it also can be distracting at times. 

Luckily, my living room had already been picked up a good bit, as we had Jacob's birthday party this past Saturday.  However, cooking Easter dinner totally wrecked my kitchen. I even took time to bleach the grout on my tile counter tops, deep clean the top of my stove, and the inside of my microwave. 

Here are my efforts.

This is my kitchen before. You can see how the kitchen looks into the living room.

Quinn came in to the kitchen as I was almost finished. He had been playing in his room with his toys, but when he saw me with the mop and broom, he immediately wanted to be my "special helper"!  Well, how can you turn that down? I sent him to put on old clothes and we tackled the kitchen floor. 

Here are my kitchen after pictures.

This is my living room before.  The picture is a little blurry, but you can still see the laundry pile (my never-ending battle with a mountain of clothes), a haphazard shoe, and party bags still on the end table.

There...that looks much better!!

Now if I can convince my boys and dog that it should STAY this way......