You know the folk tale of the three hungry soldiers returning from war? After years of hardship, the villagers in the town they come upon are reticent to share any food with them. The soldiers end up tricking the townspeople into contributing a bounty to their Stone Soup. One man brings a hunk of beef while another brings some carrots. A woman and her child contribute potatoes and onions that they “happen” to find in the cellar. The resulting meal is a feast for all to partake of.

"First. Go around every room, drawer, and closet in the house, and see what is out of order, and what needs to be done, and make arrangements as to time and manner of doing it." ~ Catharine Beecher & Harriet Stowe, The New Housekeeper's Manual, 1873 The first step in our "Odds and Ends Series" for our monthly home maintenance has been completed. How about you, did you go through the house last month and see what was out of order and what needed to be done? Did you make up a list? Here is what I came up with. In cases like these, it is a blessing to live in a smaller home! (Ms. Beecher also suggested making arrangements on when to accomplish these tasks. And I have done that as well... whenever I had the time!) Items were completed prior to month-end so that the next monthly home maintenance can be made on schedule (and hopefully with little effort now that the "machinery is moving easily and well" to quote her once again). Note: This is not to be confused with a spring cleaning. This is more of a monthly organizational upkeep and maintenance of your inventory of household goods to make your home run smoothly. Like our Victorian Era ancestors, we will also try to add some special homemaking touches along the way. 1. The Living Room ~ Straighten up the bookshelves. Our living room is kept in pretty decent order at all times. It is the entrance and therefore the first impression one gets when walking into our home. We like it to be tidy so that hospitality is always available. The one thing that needs constant maintenance is the straightening up of our many bookshelves since they are constantly being used. We like to keep all the series grouped together and keep the larger books to the sides of the bookshelf since they are the strongest. From each of the two sides, we place books in size order so that by the time we get to the middle (the weakest part of the shelves), it will contain the lighter books. The heaviest of books get placed on the bottom shelves along with some wicker baskets full of blocks and puzzles. Little Touches: When I completed my task, I surveyed the scene... I rotated the cushions on the couch, fluffed up the pillows and clipped a little bouquet to place on our fireplace mantle. What needs to be done in your Living Room? 2. Kitchen ~ Organize refrigerator. The kitchen is the most used room in the house and it is important to me that it is also kept in order (if you want to maintain sanity). The one thing that is hard to keep up with is the ever changing contents of the refrigerator. At least one a month, we try and asses the situation, regroup the contents and remove anything old (hopefully we have been vigilant and there isn't much loss). Little Touches ~ We regrouped our glass canisters to give a cleaner appearance and placed our kombucha bottles in the pantry for a less cluttery look. In the past our monthly maintenance required us to organize our silverware and utensils, to organize our bakeware and organize our pantry with some pretty labels. What needs to be done in your kitchen? 3. The Bathroom ~ Restock supplies such as toilet paper, cotton balls, q-tips, shampoo/conditioner. Our bathroom stays in decent order. We keep our excess toiletries in plastic "dollar store" baskets in our shelf behind our "skirt" curtain where we also store our stash of "bathroom inventory". There wasn't much to do besides check our supplies and restock said items. Little Touches ~ We changed the shower curtain. This is something we do every season to freshen up our surroundings. Whenever I find a pretty shower curtain on clearance or second hand (under $5), I add it to our collection (we don't wallpaper or remodel in our home so this is the closest I get to re-decorating). I also made a batch of lavender room spray for the bathroom. What needs to be done in your bathroom(s)? 4. The Master Bedroom ~ Organize under the bed storage bags, clean out wardrobe of unseasonal clothing that was left behind, organize my personal space in wardrobe such as books, essential oils and toiletries. We keep our room clutter free as it is very small. It has our bed, our wardrobe, a yard-long picture of roses, and a small table by the bedside. With that being said, there isn't much to maintain besides some small organizational projects of the areas I mentioned. Little Touches ~ I made some simple and sweet sachets (we will share these in the future). With our humid climate, we can get a musty smell so I am continually airing out the wardrobes. The sachets will add a nice fragrance and freshen everything up. What needs to be done in your master bedroom? 5. Children's Bedroom ~ Evaluate what can be done about lack of storage and attempt to remedy (our home has no built in closets), remove clothing that no longer fits, organize bookcase, pack up younger aged books and place in storage, fine tune odds and ends. We were able to find a broken antique wardrobe at an auction house for a small price (my husband revived it with a few extra nails and inserted additional shelves). My daughter painted the closet (inside and out) and we added some pretty glass knobs. This really helped to organize the room better now that everything is tucked inside a closet. We also straightened up the bookshelves and removed items that are no longer in use (such as small clothing, etc.). Little Touches ~ We layed rose-printed shelf paper inside all of the drawers. It looks lovely inside! What needs to be done in your children's room? Here are some printable labels to help you organize their room in case you need some inspiration. 6. Laundry Room ~ Refurbish supplies of laundry solutions, organize under laundry station, fine tune operation. The laundry room had gotten pretty grimy since it is near the mudroom off the house. I did do some spring cleaning in there and fine tuned my operation. I prepared larger batches of fabric softener, changed out some of the canister jars and prepared an area exclusively for kitchen linens so that those can be washed separately when I have a loads worth (before I had to dig them out from the main laundry in the laundry basket, now they go directly in their own pile in the laundry room). Little Touches ~ We refreshed our laundry room and will share this in a separate post since laundry rooms are so fun! Here is a look at the laundry room before which also includes some printable organizational labels in case you are interested. What needs to be done in your laundry area? 7. Garage/Mudroom ~ Organize and relabel any storage boxes which lacked labels. We made sure all the labels were visible and the area is orderly (so hubby is happy). Items that haven't been used should be donated or given to someone who can use them. I have learned that if you aren't sure about an item, place it in a box with the date. If you haven't used it in over a year when you happen upon it again, then it is time to say "goodbye". 8. Spare Room/School Room/Office (all in one) ~ (work in process, no photo) This is a new addition for us so we are slowly organizing it into an efficient space where we can homeschool, do projects and keep the home office. Now it is your turn! Are you ready to assess your situation? Victorian Era author, Ms. Catharine Beecher, had given us 7 steps to home management success (found here). Here is what we have shared on our "Odds and Ends" Monthly Home Maintenance Series (note that some steps were placed together and altered to make for modern day needs): Complete Steps in Series: Step #1 ~ What Needs to Be Done in Your Home? Step #2 ~ Restocking the Cleaning Closet Step #2, 3, 5, 6 ~ Examining the Store-Closet, Pantry, Cellar and Such Step #4 ~ Examining the "Table Linens" Step #4 ~ Examining the "Bed Linens" Step #7 Examining the Toolbox and/or "Junk Drawer" Checklist for Preparing Your Own Maintenance: "Odds and Ends" Monthly Home Maintenance ~ Printable Checklist You will find more home organization ideas here if you are interested. "A housekeeper who will have a regular time for attending to these particulars will find her whole family machinery moving easily and well; but one who does not, will constantly be finding something out of joint, and an unquiet, secret apprehension of duties left undone or forgotten, which no other method will so effectually remove." ~ Catharine Beecher & Harriet Stowe, The New Housekeeper's Manual, 1873 This post may be shared with some or all of the following link-ups: The Art of Home-Making Mondays, Modest Mom Monday's, Homestead Barn Hop, Amaze Me Monday, Monday's Musings, Marriage Monday, Titus 2sdays, Titus 2 Tuesdays, Raising Homemakers, Make Bake Create, Wise Woman Link Up, Wow Us Wednesdays, Wildcrafting Wednesday, The Scoop, Coffee and Conversation, So Much at Home, Homemaking Thursdays, Home Sweet Home, Hearts for Home Thursdays, Growing in Grace Thursdays, Home Acre Hop, From the Farm Blog Hop, Farmgirl Friday, Front Porch Friday Blog Hop, Simple Meals Friday, Cultivate Nourishing and Clever Chicks Blog Hop. Thank you lovely ladies for hosting these. Painting by George Goodwin Kilburne.

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