How To Clean My House

A dear friend of mine just recently purchased her first house. It’s so cute, and it’s just the perfect house for her. But, she’s learning that there are some differences in taking care of an apartment, and taking care of a house. She wrote to me to ask, “How do you keep your home clean?” I almost laughed. I have been trying to answer that question ever since we moved in to our house. Since I have yet to find a way that the house will just clean itself, I’ve done lots of thinking about it and I’ve come up with my own system.

So here’s my response to her email:

“Dear LL,

Okay, you’re gonna think I’m nuts – wait – you already know I’m nuts and you love me anyway. [sigh] Thank you.

The reason I’ve taken so long to reply is because I’ve been working on a system to answer your question. “How do you keep your house clean?”

For a while I tried doing the Flylady system and it is a great system for some people – it just had too many emails for me.

I’ve also tried the Menus4Moms system and it’s good, too, but it just didn’t “fit” me quite right.

Soooooo, I’ve been developing my own system which is sort of a combination of the two with a twist. Apparently, I have “authority issues” because when someone tells me to do something, I tend to have a “you can’t make me” attitude. (Yeah, I know, really healthy…) Anywhoo, so when I tell myself to do it, I don’t seem to have those issues.

Like flylady and menus4moms, I’ve divided the house into zones. But instead of having a cleaning day and tackling one zone a week, I have been working on one zone a day.

Monday: Master suite and Money
I change the sheets, vacuum, and dust the bedroom. I clean the counters, sinks, toilet, tub and shower. I manage our Microsoft Money accounting program.
Then every week, I add 15 minutes (sometimes more, sometimes less) of “detail” work in that zone. Two weeks ago, I tackled the pile of stuff in the chair. Last week, I polished all the wood furnishings. This week, I cleaned the baseboards, doors, door casings, and ceiling fan. Next week, I’ll get the crevice tool out for the vacuum cleaner and vacuum the edges of the room where the regular vacuum won’t reach.

Tuesday: Kitchen and Breakfast Room
I clean the counter tops, move the counter top appliances, clean them, and under them. I clean the stove top, microwave front, dishwasher front, and refrigerator front. I sweep and mop the floors.
Detail work includes: Two weeks ago, I emptied and cleaned the refrigerator. Last week, I emptied the cupboards on one side of the kitchen and totally reorganized them. Tomorrow, I’ll empty the cupboards on the other side of the kitchen and reorganize them. Next week, I’ll wipe down the front of the cupboards, or go through the pantry, or clean under the sink, etc…

Wednesday: Porch, Entry, Dining Room and Living Room
Sweep the porch. Vacuum, dust and clean the windows in the Entry. Vacuum and dust the dining room. Remove anything that gets left in the dining room. (Hubby is notorious for leaving luggage, shoes, random items, etc. in the dining room.) Vacuum and dust the living room.
Detail work includes: mopping the tiny bit of tile in the living room in front of the fireplace, removing the baskets under the coffee table and dusting under there, cleaning baseboards, cleaning the blinds, cleaning the ceiling fan and light fixture, moving the electronics in the living room to dust under and behind them, vacuuming the furniture, etc.

Thursday: Boys Side of the House
Vacuum, sweep and dust their room and play rooms. Clean their bathroom. (eeeuuuwww) Change their sheets. Clip the boys nails. Clean the dogs ears.
Detail work includes: going through their drawers to organize and remove clothes that don’t fit, clean baseboards, clean ceiling fans, clean windows, clean blinds, dust the light fixture in their bathroom, organize cds/dvds that get left out, organize closets, etc.

Friday: Filing and Laundry Room
File all paperwork received during the week, write checks for bills when necessary, finish any laundry that didn’t get finished during the week, work on the “catch all table” (the place that I tend to dump stuff when I don’t want to deal with it.) Detail work includes: cleaning/organizing the dog’s stuff, cleaning supplies, and paper products in there. Generally I don’t do any thing else except work on the catch all table until I don’t want to work on it anymore.

Saturday: Outside projects and Garage
Mow the back yard, putter around the flower beds, trim bushes. Help Hubster organize things in the garage.
No detail stuff.

Sunday: Camera and Computer
Work on computer files and picture files. Tag photos. Organize documents, work on digital scrapbooking, pre-write blog posts when possible, read for fun, make sure to have some family time.
No detail stuff.

For the detail stuff in each zone, I essentially look for the little things that tend to get overlooked when doing the big cleaning. (like baseboards and ceiling fans) Every day I tackle a zone, I notice something that I can put on the detail list for the next week when I come back to that zone. I write it on my daily calendar so I won’t forget.

Now there’s certain stuff I do everyday, clean the kitchen, do laundry, clean the master toilet. And there’s stuff I still need to add to the list, like steam cleaning the carpet and menu planning time – but for the most part “my system” seems to be working for me. You can take this and modify it so that it works for you. Since you don’t have to deal with kiddos or dogs, but I’m sure you can find something else to put in those zones.”

So there it is, my daily/weekly cleaning schedule. I’m sure it will continue to change over time, as most things do. But for now, this seems to be working, and my house is somewhat presentable most all the time. It’s never been like that before.