Things I Cleaned!

I thought I'd share more in detail about the things I do and how I manage to keep our home clean.  Some of you may be interested in this post and some may just want to skip it, no hurt feelings.  Housework is hardly exciting.  But it is a necessity and when you are busy like we are it doesn't take much for things to quickly get out of control.  Fortunately it doesn't take much to keep house either!

Sometimes I make it a party!

As I've share before I spend 15 minutes a day on concentrated housekeeping and I've been doing this for quite awhile now.  It really does work!  I have divided my home into zones and scheduled each zone for one day each week, including the laundry.  Then I spend 15 minutes a day working on that zone.  This is similar to the Fly Lady method, only I do daily zone cleaning and she does weekly zone cleaning.  And I don't do a "home blessing" hour on the weekends.  Mainly because I don't want to.  This is what I ended up doing in the last four weeks:

Sunday - Vacuum/Dust/Laundry

Week 1 - I vacuum and dusted the entire downstairs; 2 loads of laundry (clothes & winter coats)

Week 2 - I vacuumed the entire downstairs; 1 load of laundry; girls vacuumed/dusted upstairs

Week 3 - I vacuumed and dusted the entire downstairs; 1 load of laundry

Week 4 - I vacuumed and dusted the entire downstairs, 1 load of laundry; girls vacuum/dusted upstairs

Monday - Half Bath/Laundry Room (swish the bowl every other day; wipe down surfaces daily)

Week 1 - I cleaned mirrors & medicine cabinet

Week 2 - Cobwebs; washed walls, cleaned light fixture over sink

Week 3 -Wiped down washer/dryer & shelf

Week 4 - Scrubbed toilet & sink; washed down vanity (actually did this Tuesday morning)

Tuesday - Dining Room

Week 1 - Dusted shelves, wiped down cabinetry and artwork; spot mopped the tile floors

Week 2 - Washed the mini blind

Week 3 - Washed window and walls; spot mopped the tile floors

Week 4 - Cleaned ceiling fan, washed down table and chairs

Wednesday - Laundry

Week 1 - 1 load of laundry

Week 2 - 1 load of laundry

Week 3 - 1 load of laundry

Week 4 - 1 load of laundry; washed the artwork in the downstairs hallway

Magic erasers work really well to get smudges off the doors

Thursday - Kitchen/Entry Way

Week 1 - Wiped down all of the cabinetry

Week 2 - Cobwebs, washed the kitchen walls

Week 3 - Cleaned the doors; cobwebs, washed entry walls

Week 4 - Cleaned the appliances

Friday - Bedrooms

Week 1 - Dusted, light fixture; girls tidied up theirs

Week 2 - I did nothing in mine, girls tidied up theirs

Week 3 - I slacked off again; girls tidied up theirs

Week 4 - Cleaned my window & artwork; girls tidied up theirs

Yes, that is a pile of crap on the dryer!  I was decluttering and
this was my place to set things until I was done and took them out to
the garage where the collection bag is set up

Saturday - Upstairs Bathroom/Laundry

Week 1 - I did a load of laundry; girls cleaned the bathroom

Week 2 - I did a load of laundry; girls cleaned the bathroom

Week 3 - I did a load of laundry; oldest mopped the tile floors; youngest cleaned the bathroom

Week 4 - I did a load of laundry; oldest cleaned the bathroom; youngest had a different chore outside

My bedroom is rarely messy so I am able to skip some weeks and it gets vacuumed every Sunday regardless.  The girls work mostly on the weekends and often switch off chores depending on their schedules.  I focus most of my cleaning efforts on the weekdays and Sunday morning while they sleep in.

Sometimes our schedule is so tight I have to push a zone onto the next day and when this happens I will usually do the missed zone in the morning before I go to work or ahead of time if know a certain day is jam packed.  I try to stick to the schedule as much as possible though so I don't fall behind or get overwhelmed.

Every night we do a walk through and I'll spot mop the floors or grab the vacuum and give the carpet and floors a quick once over a couple times a week as needed.  We dump trash as needed, usually as part of our nightly kitchen routine after supper.  I'll go over our kitchen routine in another post later on.

I had all the stuff set our for dinner + our fruit pile
We really do live here!

This schedule really works and I feel like I actually clean more things more often so we manage to really stay on top of stuff.  For instance, I no longer wait to clean the ceiling fan in our dining room until it is thoroughly disgusting.  Now it gets cleaned once a month and it hardly seems dirty when I do it.  That's a big win!

My toilet brush sits in a soap solution
I change it out every week

I encourage you to map out your home by zones and give it a try.  For those of you with much larger houses 15 minutes may not be practical, but 30 minutes will be more than enough.  When you first get started you'll need to declutter your homes as you go.  My recommendation is to schedule an hour once a week devoted to decluttering.  Do this until you have made it all the way through your house and are comfortable with what you have.  For those of you with larger homes you may need to schedule an hour and a half.  Once you are done decluttering you'll only need about 15 minutes a week to walk through and maintain your decluttered house.

Make sure your chickens wipe their feet when they come in and yes
that is another pile of crap - another project I'm starting this month

If you have any questions let me know.  The idea here is to simply keep up on the housework and not become overwhelmed and enslaved to housekeeping.  Housework should not consume our lives.  The best part of this is that you always have a neat and tidy home and you don't have to be afraid of having company stop by.