How to Clean the House?

My in-laws are coming out for a visit this weekend. They haven't been out for about a year, and we don't talk often. So I'm a bit nervous. My house is an absolute disaster. It needs a really through cleaning, especially my kitchen. All the cooking for Ryan's birthday took a toll on the kitchen organization (or lack of) that I had going on. I planned on spending yesterday cleaning since the boys and I had nothing planned. However, I thought a better idea than doing the cleaning would be to paint Ryan's bedroom.

You see, Ryan is getting a new bed when his Daddy comes home for R & R. We've already bought the spaceman bedding. The bed which Pat picked out is to be delivered shortly before his arrival on leave. We still need to buy the mattress, but hope to do that ASAP when Pat gets home. So since Ryan's room is going to be "new", I thought it could use some new paint.

When we moved here, Pat was getting ready to deploy pretty quickly after that. The room for Ryan was baby blue, which was perfect for our baby boy, and it matched his crib bedding. It wasn't the best quality paint, but I wasn't going to be picky. Now, I cannot say why I didn't paint his room earlier--lazy I guess. Maybe I thought the blue was an appropriate color, so why change it?

I asked Ryan what color he wanted to get to paint his walls. His answer was "WHITE". He was pretty adamant, but there was no way I was going to spend my time painting a 3 year old's room white. I figured at the store he'd pick one of the bright colors. When we went to the store to look at the paint chips, his first choice was a beige/tan color named "Vast Desert". I showed him a sage green and medium blue, but he kept going back to the beige. I was pretty happy with his color selection, but I didn't want him changing his mind. I asked many times, and he kept telling me "I want that color on my wall." So Vast Desert it was.

It went on a bit darker than the paint chip looked, but Ryan and I are both VERY happy with it. I think the walls look 200 times better with the fresh paint. His room has a nice cozy feel to it now. I couldn't be more pleased with how it came out. I took a few pictures while in the middle of painting. I'll share photos of his complete room after we get the new furniture in there.

And since I spent most of the day yesterday painting, that means I'm going to be running around crazy today getting all the cleaning done. I wouldn't do it differently though. I'm a last minute type of person I guess--at least when it comes to cleaning.