A few weeks ago I posted some photographs of our apartment here in South Korea. Since then we have moved into a much larger (but very much older) apartment and have spent the past few weeks getting stuck into scrubbing, clearing and DIYing.

In my haste to get my hands dirty, I didn't take very many (or any good quality) photographs to show you the real 'before' shots, but here is what I do have. We took over this apartment from a good friend who finished up his time here and went back home. In no way are we saying he was a dirty creature, but, mess and clutter and dirt has a way of slowly creeping up on you, to the point where you don't even notice it anymore. And if you're not an OCD cleaning machine like I am, then you wouldn't even notice the layers of grim collecting in all the nooks and crannies. So, these pictures are pretty bad...We love you Owen, but boy oh boy did we have our work cut out for us moving into your place :)

Some of these photographs were from the day we moved in, and others are from a few days after when things were tidied up. The weather on both of those days doesn't help the photographs, and makes everything look worse. It wasn't pretty for those first few days...

The Kitchen:

Dining Area (part of the Kitchen)

Main Bedroom

Bathroom

Lounge & Front Patio

Spare Room (to become Farmboy's Man Cave)

Second spare room (to become my office)

Laundry/Outside Patio

So as you can see, we have a huge amount of space to work with, and that alone was enough to help us look through the mess. This will probably end up being one of the biggest houses/apartments we ever live in, and is more than triple the size of the first flat we lived in after being married in 2012.

Since these pictures were taken we have spent countless hours scrubbing and cleaning, sticking, moving, spraying and throwing out. Make sure to pop back next week to see how our little home is coming along.

Do you have any great cleaning tips to pass on? We don't know whether to replace the bathroom tiles (a big expense to spend on a place we will probably only be in for another year or two) or any other tips for getting rid of mould and grime? I'd love to hear from you!