Cleaning cupboard makeover

It’s time for a quick and simple little makeover. You know that one area of your house that is your bug bear? The one that annoys you on pretty much a daily basis, and yet somehow you never seem to get around to fixing it?

That was my cleaning cupboard. We’ve been in our current house for four years now. (Gasp! What?!) And for that entire time, my cleaning cupboard looked like this:

Ugh. YOU GUYS. It was BAD.

Everything was literally dumped in a big tangle on the floor. That spaghetti pie included about three giant extension cords for the vacuum cleaner (even though we only use one). There were random vacuum cleaner fittings thrown in. It was pretty much guaranteed that I would be hit in the head with a falling broom or mop every time I opened the door. And if I needed a dustpan? An archeological excavation was required to dig it out from underneath everything else.

If you look closely at that photo, you will even spot the wall rack I purchased to hang the broom and mop, and then never installed.

RIDICULOUS.

Sometimes blogging inspires me to get stuff done, and other times it’s kind of paralysing. I could have screwed that wall rack into place in about ten minutes and vastly improved the function of that cupboard, but I wanted to make it pretty so it would be “blog-worthy”.

That meant finding the right wallpaper first, which meant months of trawling different sites in search of the perfect statement-making pattern… and never quite getting around to pulling the trigger on anything.

Allegra’s bedroom makeover is what finally inspired me to get this done. The peel-and-stick wallpaper I used for her room was a game changer. Now that I’ve used it, I doubt I could go back to anything else. So I decided to order a small roll from the same company for this cleaning cupboard makeover.

Instead of wasting any more time stressing over sourcing the “perfect” pattern, I jumped online and gave myself about ten minutes to choose a design. Any design! Because no matter what, I knew it was going to look and function better than it did before.

I chose the Origami paper in a custom colour scheme of navy blue against a pale aqua background. I wasn’t blown away by the pattern, but I thought it was good enough. And you know what… now that it’s in, I absolutely love it!

I wonder why we complicate things for ourselves so often? Or maybe that’s just me. Perfectionism is a curse.

The first step of this mini-makeover was to empty out the cupboard and give it a good vacuum.

Next, in went the wallpaper! This step literally took me ten minutes! I cut it down to the correct width, lined up the top edge with the cornice, then stuck it down, smoothing as I went. I trimmed the bottom with a craft knife and it was done.

And WHAT an improvement already!

So much fresher and more inspiring. At this point I opened and closed the door a few times just to exercise my smile-muscles. It really is a little hit of happiness every time I peek inside.

Next, I added some much-needed functionality. The broom holder went up… at last.

Next, I installed a wall hook to hang up the extension cord. (The remaining two unneeded cords were banished to the garage.) I used a robe hook from Bunnings for this purpose.

And finally, I screwed a utility basket to the wall to hold our vacuum cleaner fittings. These little baskets have a host of uses for organising projects – here’s a post where I used them as mail sorters, a simple little DIY hack that went viral and has been shared over 160,000 times!

All that was left to do was hang up the broom, mop and dustpan…

And stash the vacuum cleaner fittings into their new basket.

It was such a good feeling getting all those odds and ends off the floor!

At last, everything has a place and is easily accessible. No more digging around to unearth a dustpan brush or untangle a snarled extension cord.

The only thing left on the ground is the vacuum cleaner. It finally fits!!

So what’s my number one tip to get your cleaning cupboard sorted?

If, like me, you have a small space and find that everything ends up in a huge mess… don’t forget to use your walls!

Simply getting everything off the ground has made a huge difference for us and freed up so much extra space.

Take a look at the items you need to store and then figure out what will best fit your needs – be it hooks, racks, wall-mounted baskets, or additional shelving. A trip to the hardware store with your list in hand, and you’ll be all set.

You can knock out this project in under an hour. Give it a go – you’ll thank yourself every time you open that cupboard and see a serene and happy space instead of a housekeeping nightmare. It may even inspire you to clean!*

*Results not guaranteed.

But at least your cleaning cupboard will be clean. Ha! And that’s a good place to start.

Let’s chat! Do you currently have a space in your house that resembles my “before” photo? What’s your plan for tackling it? Anyone else make projects more difficult than they actually need to be…?