Finish one room first. Which ever one that happens to be. Then, you'll have at least one space to relax in and actually see all the progress you've made.

And pause to savor your progress. Even if it is just one shelf!

This might be a good time to invest in a steamer. I have a Wagner Power steamer, best investment in cleaning. And I removed a ton of wall paper with it too.

Knowing you blasted the grime with something that hot helps in the icky factor as well

If you must live in the house while renovating the kitchen I recommend building a temporary kitchen in another room.

You should try to think of the house as a renovation project instead of your home. Hopefully that will allow you to develop a more objective and less judgmental attitude. Don't blame the house; the successful renovation of an old house requires toughness and resourcefulness with a minimum of complaining. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.

It also makes sense to hire out the early demolition and cleaning especially if you have to haul the debris and pay a dumping fee.

The minimum wage in Minnesota is $5.25 an hour. Get a little help! (The minimum here is $11 an hour, which makes you think twice--if you can even find anyone.)

A friend moved into an "as is" and found herself shovelling human feces off the basement floor. Lots and lots of Dettol!

For the best cleaning supplies, forego the Big Boxes and shop the speciality janitorial supply stores.

when i moved into a dirty house..

i started in the master bedroom ...

so that at night.. i could close the door on the rest.. and relax ...

then i did the kitchen ... just cleaning ... needing somewhere to feed my piehole.. lol ...

then went room to room thereafter ...

renovation did not begin. until that was all done.. most of the boxes unpacked.. and i felt somewhat at home...

and i think.. that is when i moved the master bed stuff.. out of there.. and did the carpeting and the paint .. etc ... and round i went again ...

perhaps.. part of your issue.. is the overwhelming nature of it all ... seeing it as a whole..... so in doing one room at a time.. you can SEE ... progress... and wake up every morning.. ready to make more progress ...

good luck

ken

ps: i did hire out carpet cleaning.. prior to move in.. knowing full well.. all the carpet was going within the year ...

Well, I am exhausted from 12 full days of cleaning but feeling better. The first "round" of filth has been removed from every room in the house, finishing with the kitchen. I now "know" every inch of the house--since I cleaned it--and have a better sense of the unknown--the good and the bad. ken, I am following your plan. . .master bedroom will be first to renovate and then room by room after that. Hope springs eternal. . .

you go girl ...

by the time you are done.. it will be yours.. top to bottom ..

your imprint on the whole ...

ken

Get ONE bedroom and bathroom scoured and clean ...even paint it white ... as finished as you can get it.

When it gets to you, go in, close the door, swill some wine and tell yourself that it's temporary.

lazygarden, that's the plan. I'm hanging in there. Most depressing is the terrible kitchen. It is so bad it is comical. I think I will paint a big sign saying "THIS TOO SHALL PASS. IT IS TEMPORARY!" My greatest fault is impatience and this experience is bringing it out in full.

If the kitchen is that bad, I'd consider gutting out the filth and putting back in some temporary cheap stuff (a few in-stock cabinets from Lowe's, a folding table to use as a counter, a couple shelving units on wheels. Something that may not look pretty, but at least isn't grotty.

Yes, and I used a lot of these 2 cleaners (my favorites)! The Lysol is a concentrate solution. For really nasty stuff, I'd use it undiluted. It both cleans & disinfects. Does need to be rinsed off well with water.

When I moved into my old house I used what was "the" cleaner of the day - Murphy's Oil Soap. To this day when I smell Murphy's I'm reminded of those exciting days, being young, buying a house all by myself, making it my own. I didn't have to worry about cleaning carpet or mopping linoleum, I tore it all up to expose the wood floors! lol

yep, I did the same as schoolhouse! Love that Murphy's Oil Soap! and products like Bon Ami, Simple Green, etc.

Marita, you mentioned humidity and bad smells... it took me forever to rid my house of the bad smells -- especially in the basement. If you can get a dehumidifier running it should help tremendously in ridding the house of any lingering bad odors. Once I put both a dehumidifier and air purifier in my basement, everything got better!

How bad are the smells? Check your pipes. I owned an old house once (125 yrs old at the time). There was a horrible smell by the back door. We never could figure out what was causing it until one day DH and his brother were in the dirt-floored basement. I flushed the toilet on the 2nd floor. Guess where all of the water went? The old cast iron pipe had a huge crack in it. DH and one of his buddies replaced the old pipe and the smell went away. What was interesting was the smell never smelled like you would think it would smell considering what it was.

oh, boy! My husband bought an 1840 log cabin before we met and it was so filthy he had to do the first round of floor and wall cleaning with a SANDBLASTER. After he shoveled out several dumpster loads of beer cans, mattresses, and confederate flags.

But then 30 years of alcoholics living in a space with no electricity and no running water will do that to a space!

Several years into our DIY restoration that kind of mess is a distant memory and we wouldn't trade our home for the world...so chin up! It gets better and you are bonding with your house- it's grateful for your time and attention and it will love you back when it can!

Yes, it can be discouraging but try and focus on how it's going to look, and try to enjoy the process. Keep telling yourself you're rescuing this house and it will give you back what you put into it.

When I bought my old Victorian, from a chain smoker, it took me all summer to get the grimy smoke film off the woodwork. One kitchen window had been caulked shut and the other was stuck from jammed weatherstripping; they took all summer to open. The house smelled awful so I kept all the windows open all summer long, and finally ripped up the carpeting to get rid of that stale tobacco smell.

I'd give everything a good once-over cleaning, then just do maintenance cleaning with more gusto than usual. It'll eventually get sparkling clean.

I basically looked at everything as just sacrificing for the sake of the house. I got by with what I had. I was saving for an upstairs bathroom when my oven then dishwasher died. I put all the savings towards a new kitchen, and still haven't gotten my bathroom.

It helps to have a plan of when you think you'll be able to do things. I knew that I had to get rid of the asbestos siding. Two years after moving in I just took a few off to see what was underneath and before you knew it, I'd ripped off all the shingles and re-painted. I did one side a year, but eventually it all got done.

TSP is my best friend.

I moved into a nasty house that hadn't been cleaned in 5 years. For about $4 at home depot, all of the rooms were cleaned down with no chemical odors. TSP even cleaned the old vinyl with pits in it to original white, no grimy spots.

you need nice rubber gloves, too.

show some pictures when you're done. good luck and enjoy the fruits of your labor.