A bright bedroom made up with care in an older house, photographed square-on and symmetrically. The bed is centred on the far wall beneath a wide window whose sheer white curtains blaze with morning sun, dressed in plain white cotton with two squared pillows and a folded grey blanket laid across it below the pillows. A white cast iron radiator stands behind the bed under the window. A honey-oak nightstand sits each side, one holding a clear glass lamp and the other a white bowl, a pale rug spreads under and beyond the foot of the bed, and sunlight falls across the oak floor on the right.

Before and after

Both frames, every room.

Each room below is one plate: the state we walked into on the left, the state we left on the right. Same position, same light, same fixtures — nothing moves between the two frames except the cleaning.

Start with the hardest one

Bathroom

Hard water is the one that looks permanent. The shower glass on the left is not frosted — that is limescale and soap scum, and it comes off. The tile is still nineteen-twenties, the radiator still wears its thick old paint, and the tub is white again.

Illustrative images showing what each service covers, not photographs of individual customers’ homes.

Before cleaning: a family kitchen with white cabinets and a butcher-block counter. Breakfast dishes and bowls fill the stainless sink, cereal and crumbs are scattered across the counter and oak floor, brown coffee rings ring the base of the coffee maker, the gas hob and grates are spattered with dried grease, a dish towel lies on the floor and the bin is overflowing. — BeforeKitchen

Before cleaning: an emptied room with cream walls and an oak floor, cleared for a move. Grey dust and lint outline the rectangles where a bed and dresser stood, dust bunnies bank along the baseboards and corners, dark scuff and drag marks streak the lower wall, unfaded rectangles and nail holes mark where pictures hung, and a wire hanger and a sheet of crumpled packing paper are left on the floor. — BeforeMove-out

Before cleaning: a newly drywalled room before its final clean, with taped seams, white joint-compound patches, unfinished pine baseboard and a bare plywood subfloor. Fine white drywall dust hazes every surface, powder drifts along the floor edges with sanding-pole swirl marks and footprints through it, the window glass is filmed milky white, and offcuts of drywall and trim, a dust mask, a curl of blue tape and a crumpled paper sheet are left by a folded stepladder. — BeforePost-construction

Before cleaning: a basement laundry area with painted block walls, exposed joists and a glass-block window. A thick blanket of grey lint is matted over the dryer and its vent hose, cobwebs and furry dust hang from the joists and across the window, laundry is heaped on the floor and spilling from baskets, detergent jugs and a bucket crowd the washer, a hose is coiled on the floor and grit and debris drift in the corners. — BeforeBasement laundry

Before cleaning: a 1940s dining room photographed from the doorway, with an oak pedestal table, wooden chairs, a low sideboard and a cast iron radiator under the window. The family meal has just ended: used plates smeared with sauce and food scraps sit around the table with cutlery dropped across them, a serving bowl holds dried-on food, paper napkins are crumpled beside half-empty glasses, a child's tumbler lies on its side with a dark purple juice stain soaked across the table runner and dripping over the edge, crumbs and grains of rice are scattered over the tabletop and the oak floor around the chair legs, the chairs are shoved back at careless angles and a film of dust with finger streaks dulls the sideboard. — BeforeDining room

Before cleaning: a home office in a converted spare bedroom, with a wooden desk under the window, a monitor and keyboard, a fabric task chair, a painted bookshelf and a radiator. Loose papers are heaped in leaning stacks across the desk and spilling onto the floor, three abandoned mugs sit among them over dark dried coffee rings, a plate of dried crumbs is pushed aside, tangled cables sag into a dusty nest below, and a thick grey film of dust covers the monitor screen and bezel, the keyboard, the shelf edges and the tops of the books, with finger streaks dragged through it. The wastebasket is overflowing. — BeforeHome office

Before cleaning: a tiny 1950s powder room seen from the open doorway, lined chest-high in glossy black and white square tile with a black cap rail, on a white penny tile floor, with a pedestal sink, chrome cross-handle taps, a small mirror and a toilet. Chalky white hard-water scale crusts the tap spout and handles, the mirror is flecked with dried toothpaste spatter and hazy smears, a grimy ring sits in the sink bowl with a rust-brown mineral streak running to the drain, a dust film with fingerprints covers the switch plate and the toilet tank top, the hand towel has fallen crumpled on the floor, the bin is overfull and the penny tile grout is darkened and dingy. — BeforePowder room

8 rooms, on arrival

This is what we walk into.

A kitchen after breakfast, a shower door nobody thinks will ever be clear again, a basement that has been holding lint since the machines went in. Nothing here is staged worse than it was found, and nothing here is hidden behind a handle you have to drag.

Four rooms, in full

The left frame is why you called.

Each plate is a single room from a single position. What is gone between the two halves is the work; what is still there is the house.

Kitchen

Dishes, crumbs, coffee staining, hob grease, floor debris and full bin removed; cabinets, counter, appliances and window light unchanged.

Dining room

End-of-meal mess rather than squalor: plates, scraps, crumbs and a spilled drink cleared, the stain lifted, the floor swept and the sideboard dusted. Table, chairs, sideboard, radiator, picture and window light unchanged.

After cleaning: the same emptied room from the same doorway in the same bright late-morning light. The oak floor is swept, vacuumed and mopped so the dust film and lint around the furniture outlines are gone, the dust bunnies are cleared from the baseboards and corners, the scuff and drag marks are scrubbed off the wall, and the hanger and packing paper are removed. The unfaded rectangles where pictures hung and the small nail holes are still there, because cleaning does not repaint.

Move-out

Cleaning does not repaint.

The unfaded rectangles where pictures hung and the small nail holes are still there in the after frame. We would rather show you that than crop it out.

Close up

Clean is a detail, not an impression.

A room reads clean from the doorway long before it is. These are the places we are actually judged on: the crevice where the baseboard meets the floor, the underside of a tap, the corner of a sill.