Shining your Kitchen Sink

Further to the numerous comments floating around both on my blog & other blogs at the moment about Fly Lady & her pearls of wisdom for the disorganised soul, I will tell you a story about my first encounter with her.

This was many years ago & we were living in a rental house.

For those who don't know Fly Lady, her very first instruction to those beginning a journey of discovery and decluttering is to shine your kitchen sink.

Her instructions are as follows:

1. Take all the dishes out of the sink.
2. Run some very hot water into the sink. Fill to the rim. Only do one side at a time. Then, pour a cup of household bleach into the hot water. Let it sit for 1 hour. Now, pull the plug with a pair of tongs. If you don't have tongs, then scoop some of the water out of the sink into the other sink and use your hand to pull the plug (wear gloves and don't get the bleach-water on your clothes).
3. Rinse your sink well.
4. Use some cleanser (Comet, Ajax, or Baking Soda) and scrub your sink. Ensure you rinse ALL of the cleanser from the sink.
5. Take a sharp edge and clean around the rim of the sink, just like you would clean dirt out from under your fingernails.
6. Clean around the faucets too. You may need an old toothbrush or dental floss.
7. Now, get out your window cleaner, I use Windex, and give it a good shine.


I followed her instructions to the letter but I only got as far as Step 2 before I struck the iceberg (metaphorically speaking).

I filled my sink to the rim with very hot water & let it sit for an hour. I came back an hour later to find the water level had decreased in the sink. I figured the plug leaked slightly. I finished all the other steps, slightly dissapointed that although doing everything to the letter (including the extra steps for stainless sinks), it still didn't look much different to when I started & I certainly couldn't see my reflection. Oh well, at least I knew it was clean.

We didn't have a dishwasher at this time & that night I went up to the sink to do my dishes & wondered why there was a puddle of water on the floor. I hadn't spilt any (I hadn't even begun washing).

I opened the door of the cupboard under the sink to a gush of water (OK, it was actually more like a dribble, but remember quite some time had elapsed).

Turns out the sealant around the taps was not doing it's proper job & as the taps were joined to the sink UNDER the rim (remember I filled it to the rim?) the water had leaked down between the taps & the sink, into the chipboard cupboards below & sat there for a good few hours soaking in.

Thankfully only so much could leak out before the water level dropped below the join but a little went a very long way that day.

I think I might have overdone it on the bleach though because I kept finding dead cockroaches in that cupboard for weeks afterwards.

It eventually dried out & although there was some minor staining it didn't look too bad & when we left after 3 years of living there, we still got our full bond back.

Oh No - It's almost Monday !!!

Following on from my last post - it is back to work tomorrow & I still have much to do.

I have had a very productive weekend though.

Last night we went to Grannysaurus & Mr Sunshines place for Uncle Jingles birthday. Grannysaurus has some pictures on her blog if you want to check them out.

It was a nice night out & dinner was lovely (Grannysaurus cooked a roast dinner).

Unfortunately Little Bear got a bit carried away in all the excitement & while playing a game involving jumping off a step, little bear lost her balance & fell flat on the tiles, chipping one of her front teeth. Her mouth was a bit tender all night & still is today. She hasn't eaten as much as usual today & it took her about 15 minutes to eat a banana today (chopped up) which usually only takes her about 2 minutes (she loves "na-na").

She is a bit reluctant to show off her chipped tooth so I don't have any photo's as yet, but hopefully as it starts to feel better she will smile for the camera.

Today I have done a heap of the usual housework, however I have managed to cross off another couple of things from my list of "things to do before I return to work full time" (maybe I should shorten that to "To-Do by April").

One thing I have been doing in small bits & pieces is cleaning up all the stationery that was beginning to accumulate in Cheetah's room. The stuff I took out managed to fill a 48L plastic tub. I am trying to sort it out so that he can have what he needs back in his room & the rest can get tossed or stored in the appropriate places.

Today I worked on sorting out his colouring pencils. A couple of weeks ago, I put them all in one container & sharpened them all, throwing out a heap of bad ones in the process. Today I sorted what was left by colour & found that he had enough to fairly evenly fill 4 pencil cases so that each pencil case had an assortment of colours without too much doubling up or lacking of any particular colour.

That done, I just have to work out what to do with the other nine tenths of the stuff - Baby steps is what gets the job done though.

The other thing I did today was to sort Little Bear's baby photo's, putting a collection into a folder ready to be printed for scrapbooking purposes. She is 20 months old now & I have almost completed the first page of her baby book :-)

Now the trick will be keeping that folder updated as I take more photo's.

Thankyou to Mum-me & Queen Stuss who gave glowing reviews to fly-lady. I actually came across her website years ago & still go there from time to time for good ideas. My problem however is not so much my lack of ability or motivation to organise - it's my lack of time to do it & for a long time too, it has been lack of storage in this house. It really has been a case of shifting the mess from one place to another because there wasn't anywhere for it. It is extremely hard to keep a clean house when you can't even put all the towels away at once because there just isn't the space. At one point, the only wardrobe we had in the house was a kids wardrobe. Now DH & I have a built-in & so does Little Bear. Cheetah will be getting one soon as his room is the next to be renovated as soon as we have the money.

We are gradually overcoming the storage problem as we renovate, borrow cupboards & buy things like plastic boxes & other things to keep our stuff organised, but it will take time.

I now have to go & iron hubby a shirt for tomorrow, as because I was doing those other things, I haven't finished my ironing.