What does these japanese sentences mean in english?

>>> It didn't feel much like the year-end, so out of sentimental reasons I set about doing the house cleaning thoroughly. Or at least, I THOUGHT I was being thorough. But I soon came to realise I wasn't really doing THAT much differently from my regular cleaning routine. Now here I am, still not feeling the atmosphere of the year's end. <<<

This is how I would say it in English. Avoided a word-to-word translation since it would not fully capture the 'feel' of the original Japanese passage.

Hope it helps.

Although I tried to do a lot of cleaning because there is no better feeling at the end of the year, because it doesn't change so much of what you cleaned since you clean contnually each day, and not continue to get that feeling.