1. The kitchen: Prep your pantry
Home-isolation means less supermarket runs (hallelujah!), but more stockpiling. Now, we don’t want anyone stockpiling beyond their needs – we all need to be mindful of the elderly and disadvantaged who can’t access the shops and when they do, the shelves are empty. That said, being housebound for 14 days is going to mean your shopping habits – frequency, food choices, cooking and pantry – will all evolve. Prep your pantry into organised sections - pastas, grains, baking ingredients, biscuits and snacks, tinned foods, soups and other non-perishables. Clear jars are great for easy identification, and baskets are perfect for random stow-away gear like light bulbs and torches. If you have glass jars to recycle from coffee or biscuits, do it – and leave a little less footprint on our planet.
2. Laundry: Give your cleaning products the once over
One of the most important home jobs to do during these unprecedented times is house cleaning. Now, just a quick mastermaid lesson on this: the official guidelines recommend cleaning frequently used surfaces first, such as door handles, benchtops, light switches and tabletops. After cleaning them with detergent or a similar cleaning product, disinfect those surfaces with hospital grade disinfectant.
Why do the job twice?
Because cleaning first reduces the soil load, allowing the disinfectant to work properly. This is the perfect time to get knowledgeable about your household cleaners and clean your home spick and span. Read the labels carefully, use the appropriate cleaning products for the intended cleaning surface as per their recommended usage, and follow the instructions – including water/product ratio measurements – to ensure efficiency. no point wasting precious elbow grease if you don't kill the virus.
3. House and yard: Fix all those things you’d been meaning to!
Broken pavers, splintered outdoor decks, bursting bins, precarious shelves, blown light bulbs… all those jobs that won’t necessarily stop the world from spinning, but might it spin a little more smoothly if they worked! Write a list, and work through it from most important to least and fix it all!. This is your opportunity to use this time to lighten your mind of all the 'to dos' hanging around like a dark grey cloud. You will feel lighter when everything is ticked off!
4. Garden: Create a vertical herb and vegie garden
We love vertical gardens. They instantly liven up small courtyards and dull walls with colour and fragrance. They can turn a sterile concrete space into a nature oasis. And, they are easy to look after. But the biggest selling point? You have a live edible garden – pesticide free and bursting with healthy nutrients to support your health.
5. Everywhere: Declutter
It’s not spring, but an autumn declutter is just what households need to clear the slate for a virus-free home. Go through the kids’ drawers and pack away any clothing that they’ve outgrown or outworn. Have a pile for charity, and a pile for rags or the bin. Same with toys. If you have space for 1001 toys in the home, by all means have them out and on display. But if the toys are just creating a big disorganised mess, then sort them out. Put all the like items together in relevant toy baskets: books, plush toys, Duplo, dolls, puzzles, art and craft, construction etc. Pack away baskets and bring them out on rotation, so the kids feel there’s a new batch to explore on each occasion.
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