Cleaning Secrets...Shhh!!!

Psst...I have a secret for all you peeps out there who think my house is always clean (which I promise you is NOT true). Are you ready for it? I only deep clean my house once a month. GASP! SHOCK! Yes, that’s right…once a month. Now before you start judging me let me explain how I keep my house tidy and clean with less time spent actually cleaning it. You can thank me later.

First I deep clean our home at the beginning of the month. I’m talking removing all the décor off the tables and shelves when I dust…moving the kitchen chairs out so I can sweep and mop really good…scrubbing the bathrooms like they’ve never been scrubbed…getting out my vacuum detachments (GASP again!). Yes, I know it sounds like a lot of work, but trust me, it’s worth it.

To me, there are 3 main areas that I focus on while deep cleaning.

Bathrooms

Dusting

Floors

Sometimes I do all 3 in one day. Sometimes I pick 1 to focus on each day until it’s all finished. To me, floors are the hardest so sometimes I just do floors on one day and then bathrooms and dusting on another day…just whatever I have time and energy for at the moment.

So I know you are gripping the edge of your seat to find out how I make this last for the month. It’s called up-keep. Or as my best friend calls it…Power Cleaning. I call it Quick Clean. Quick Clean is when you run around and clean quickly when you have a spare few minutes because let’s face it, if you deep clean really well at the beginning of the month, there’s no need to do all that every week. Who has time for that? And if you do, who wants to do that?!? I Quick Clean about 2-3 times a month. This, my friends, is the key to it all.

Here are my Quick Cleaning Tips:

I have a small broom/dustpan set that I keep in the pantry. I sweep up all the crumbs from under the table every night. And if I’m being honest, I usually try to sweep up after every meal (Someone please tell me that my kiddos will outgrow getting food everywhere during meal times….Anybody? Anybody? That’s what I thought). This takes me like 2 minutes, but saves me from having to sweep my entire kitchen every week. I also spot mop as needed.

I keep Clorox/Lysol disinfectant wipes handy to give the bathroom a good wipe down every week. And I clean the mirror too. There’s just something about having no spots on the mirror that makes a bathroom feel clean. Again, this takes me less than 10 minutes for both bathrooms.

For dusting, I use the Swiffer dusters. I don’t take anything off the furniture/tables. I just dust around it all. We have black furniture in all our rooms. We love black furniture…except that it is a pain to keep looking dust free. So sometimes I will take a damp towel and use that instead of the Swiffer on the furniture that is most visible…like our living room coffee table and end tables. This takes me about 10 minutes each week as well.

I don’t really have a schedule for Quick Cleaning. I just do it when I have a burst of energy…or if something is really starting to bother me (like all those spots on the mirror!) So remember…Deep clean at the beginning of the month. Quick Clean in between. It’s still work, but hopefully not as much. Happy Cleaning!