Cleaning a home is a boring and thankless job. On the other hand, a clean and well organised house gives you a sense of proud feeling. If you have guests coming in the upcoming week then setting aside a few hours each day will be helpful in cleaning your house within a week.
As I am working in a cleaning company, I will show you how to clean and organize your house in just one week.
Before starting, take a picture of your house or rooms, so that you can see the difference after applying the tips in this blog. Moreover they can be your next instagram story!
DAY 1 – Get rid of Garbage
On day 1 we are going to declutter all the trash in your home. Take large garbage bags and start going from one room to another. Empty all your dustbins onto the garbage bag and also look for used napkins, waste paper, broken crockery or toys – anything that is trash.
In the case of mails, ask your family members if they need them in future. Many papers or mails are part of trash as they are no longer needed but are still lying next to our tables.
If you are not sure, then collect these things and put them in another bag. When your family members come then ask them whether it’s important or trash.
DAY 2 – Clean Kitchen
On Day 2 we are going to clean the kitchen. Your kitchen has various spots that are easily ignored while cleaning like under the kitchen stove or cabinets. In this section we will tackle them one by one. Gather these equipment – trash bag, steel wool, basket to collect stuff that doesn’t belong to the kitchen, broom, vacuum and dish soap.
- First of all, clean off the stuff that doesn’t belong to the kitchen counter. Either put them at their respective place or trash them.
- Clean refrigerator – We neglect the refrigerator while cleaning but there are lots of things in your freezer that don’t deserve this place. expired peanut butter, medicines or rotten vegetables. Put them into trash. Clean the refrigerator from thoroughly.
- Clean the cabinets from inside and outside. Wash the dishes and put them away in respective cabinets. You can also arrange dishes – like the utensils that you use daily, put them in one cabinet and keep the expensive utensils or dinner sets into other cabinets.
- Clean the kitchen sinks with steel wool.
- Clean the counters with an all purpose cleaner after wiping them with a wet cloth.
- Sprinkle all purpose cleaner on the kitchen stove and wait for 5-10 minutes. Until then, clean the microwave. If you don’t have an all purpose cleaner then you can use this cleaning trick at home. Put equal amounts of warm water and vinegar into a spray bottle. Now use it to clean stains on the stainless steel of the kitchen stove or under it.
- Now clean the kitchen floor and don’t forget to dust the lights and fan in the kitchen.
DAY 3 – Closets and Bedroom
On day 3, we are going to clean the closets and bedrooms of the house. The time required for cleaning tasks depends on the number of bedrooms you have in your house and the size of closets. However, you keep aside 1-2 hours from your schedule on this day.
Lets clean closets first
Have you heard of the 80/20 rule?
This rule applies to your clothes also. You wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time and the rest 80% are still in your closets. This applies to both men and women.
Here are some steps to clean closets efficiently
- Put out clothing that no longer fits you or you don’t wear them anymore. Keep them aside in bed and the best thing you can do with these clothes is to give them to charity.
- Take out the items that don’t belong to closets and place them at their respective spot.
- Clean the closet and wipe down all the dust from both inside and outside.
- All closets have divisions, so put your regular used clothes into one cabinet and others into different. This will be helpful in choosing outfits for your mornings.
- Hang the clothes properly and also correctly fold the clothes.
Now it’s time to clean the bedroom.
- Pick up the grubby clothes from the bedroom and put them in the laundry. It’s better to have a bin nearby to put dirty clothes.
- Fold and put away clean clothes in the closet
- Remove the things that don’t belong to the bedroom like keys, cosmetics etc.
- Replace old bed sheets, pillow covers with new ones. Your bed sheet needs to be changed once a week.
- Clean your bedroom table and put the objects like books, earphones, chargers etc. back into drawers.
- Dust the curtains, lights, switches, windows, mirrors, shelves and photo frames in the bedroom.
- Well we keep the floor cleaning the whole house on Day 6 but you can do it today if you have time. First sweep the floor and then mop it. If the floor is hardwood then vacuum the rugs before sweeping the floor.
DAY 4 – Kids Room or Play Rooms
Kids’ rooms are messy and sometimes the scene looks like after a disaster. As a mom you feel overwhelmed to clean it by yourself. But I advise you to take the help of your kids in cleaning their room. Dr. Sears advises on their website that in order to raise confident children, give them household responsibilities. While working with your children you need patience and grace. So you might need to take lots of deep breaths and smiles.
To clean the kids room follow these step by step instructions:-
- Collect the supplies – a vacuum, dust rag, trash cans, garbage bags, basket, lysol or other type of all purpose cleaner. Make sure all these cleaning supplies are in the same room.
- Now collect all the toys that are lying on the floor or study table or on the bed. Ask your child to put them back to the place where they belong. Collect all the broken toys and put them into trash bags. Take all dirty dishes and containers to the kitchen
- Now put dirty clothes into the laundry and fold or hang the clean clothes. After folding all the clothes, put them into almirah.
- Remove the old bed sheet and pillow covers. Replace it with a new one. Many experts recommend cultivating the habit among children to make their own bed.
- Pick up all the books, papers and random pieces. Organize them at the study table or keep them at the bookshelf.
- Dust the room – No one likes dusting but it’s essential if your child has allergies. Dust the lights, switches, windows, almirah, fans, photo frames etc.
- Sweep or vacuum the floor and then mop them. Vacuum the curtains, mattresses and rugs every week. You have to move furniture to do this task. For this you can take help from your husband also.
- Disinfect your child’s room with lysol or other disinfecting cleaner.
DAY 5 – Bathroom
Bathroom of your house says a lot about your housekeeping to your guests. An unclean bathroom is the source of unpleasant smells and many diseases.
As you use your bathroom to clean yourself, it’s time to return the favour.
Here in this section, I will guide you step by step on how to clean your bathroom in less than an hour.
Let’s Jump in
- Gather your tools and bathroom cleaning products first. For cleaning the washroom gather a broom, a mop, brushes, all purpose cleaner, paper towel, gloves, water pipe.
- Clean Toilet seat – Start with the toilet seat. Use harpic or any other cleaner to clean the toilet seat. Well, I don’t have to explain how to use these cleaners to clean seats. You can also use the vinegar solution that I explained above to clean the toilet seat. Just spray the solution at the base, lid, rim and inside the seat. Let the cleaner do its work. After cleaning the whole bathroom, flush the toilet seat and clean it with water from outside.
- Mirrors – Clean the mirror with wet newspapers or use DIY cleaners.
- Sinks – Now clean the sink by first cleaning the hairs, derbies from the drain, then run hot water through it. After this, spray the sink with an all -purpose cleaner and wipe it down.
- Drawers and Cabinets- First remove all the empty containers and outdated things from drawers. Then, vacuum the drawers from inside and outside. Clean the drawers with microfiber cloth and put back the useful things in an organised manner.
- Taps and Shower heads- The bathroom taps and shower heads lose shine after sometime due to presence of calcium and magnesium in hard water. To clean them you can use a solution made of lime, soda and vinegar. Add one spoon of vinegar and lemon juice into the water. Apply the solution on taps, shower heads or other shiny handles in the bathroom. Now after 15 minutes clean them with cloth or water.
- Shower curtains – Clean shower curtains in the washing machine.
- Don’t forget to dust the lights and exhaust fan.
- Clean floor Tiles and bathtub – Use the water and vinegar solution that we prepared on Day 2 to clean the floor tiles, corners and tub walls.
DAY 6 – Floors
Congratulations on all your way down to the last day of your cleaning journey. You have completed 90% cleaning of your house without burning out and losing interest.
On this day we are going to clean the floor of your house.
The question usually comes up in your mind is how often should I clean the floor ?
The best time to clean floors is when they look dirty.
Generally, sweep the high traffic areas of your house like hallways, kitchen, drawing room, bathrooms twice a week and mop the floor once a week. A good mopping removes the dirt and dust from the floor thus protecting it from damage.
Here is the step by step process to clean the floor of your house fast.
- Collect the supplies and equipment – For cleaning the floor gather equipment like vacuum cleaner or broom, a mop, two mop buckets, sponge, mopping detergent, paper towels at one place.
- You have to move the bed, sofa or tables to effectively clean the floor. So it would be better to take the help of a male member in the family.
- Vacuum First – Using a long extension for vacuum cleaners will be helpful in taking vacuum cleaner to different rooms and increases your flexibility. Before mopping the floor, use a vacuum to clean dust. Vacuuming first prevents the floor from being sticky and muddy.
- Fill the Buckets – Fill the buckets with warm water and then add any cleaner of your choice into one of the buckets. We are using two buckets because the second bucket is used to rinse the mop. Don’t use excess cleaning detergent, always read the instructions on the packing.
- Mopping – Use mops according to floors – for ceramic tiles you can use classic string mops and for smooth floors you can use a sponge mop. Dip the mop in the solution bucket first and start cleaning from one corner of the room and move backward. In this way you avoid standing in a mopped area. Move the mop in straight lines or in motion of number 8. After scrubbing the floor, rinse the mop in a rinse bucket to remove dirt from the mop. Repeat this process until you clean the whole house floor.
- Turn on the fans of the room as you mop so that the floors will dry quickly before walking off with your family members.
- Clean tough spots – For tough spots on the floor you can use a sponge or paper towel. Squat down and apply a good tile cleaner on the dirty spot, then scrub the floor back and forth with a sponge or paper towel.
Kudos!
You have completed the cleaning of the whole house in just one week.