When gardens are all tucked in for the winter, fruit has all been picked, and the canner has been put away . . . something in my brain switches gears. It is now time to turn the focus from outside gardening, flowers, and fruit trees to my messy house.
Problem is, I get all excited for about two days, and then I bottom out. The house looks too big, too messy, and too overwhelming to get it all done in a week or so. In years past, I’d find that I would start off at a good speed with the deep cleaning, but by the time I got to the last few rooms I was doing a sloppy job. I sometimes would switch it up from year to year – start with the rooms sloppily cleaned the time before and work my way backwards through the house. This worked for a while.
Then I saw this bright idea on another blog to do the deep cleaning all year long:
A different room for every month.
And I started getting excited once again! It looked like something right down my alley – something doable for a scatterbrained mom of six kids.
However, this lady’s list was for cleaning every single month of the year, except for December. And she went through her house two complete times in one year. Yet this not how I want to live my own life!
I wish to enjoy my summer months since they are so packed full of outside work, gardening, and lots of fun times! I have no desire whatsoever to clean my house in the summer. Instead, I’ve learned to live with it by giving it a “lick and a promise” that the true cleaning will come later!
So I made up a list that lets me clean the house during the winter months, with summer months completely off for outside stuff. I also left December open since I pretty much have to devote that month to running extra trips to Canada for Lowell’s postal route with all its extra Christmas parcels.
This is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination. And some of these things I actually do several weeks or so. Such as some of the windows get washed almost every week with lots of little fingers to smudge them up around here! Or I simply can’t handle any of them anymore and wash them all. But I love to feel organized (whether my actions follow or not) and this is one way to help me lower some of the stress in my life.
If you wish to view, print or download this Monthly Deep Cleaning list,
you’re welcome to do so by clicking here.
November is the month I scheduled for cleaning all the bedrooms. But we started a wee bit early and the children did their bedrooms on Saturday! To help them out a bit, I printed up this list they could look at to guide them through deep cleaning their rooms.
Now I do not necessarily enjoy cleaning an entire house by myself. Especially not when the filth is only 1/8 mine!
So I decided to enlist the help of my little minions, er – children, and bribed them with a donut and $2 each if they cleaned their own room. 🙂 Actually, they really didn’t have a choice! They obeyed because I told them to. But since we do not give an allowance, we pay for extra jobs that are not included in the day-to-day grind of keeping a home for eight people. Washing walls, closets, and beds is considered a small extra around here!
If you’d like to view, print or download the
Kids Spring/Fall Cleaning Checklist,
you’re welcome to so by clicking here.
And may I say (tongue in cheek) “Have fun”?!
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Rebecca Byler says
I’m saving this one! It looks like one that fits my life pretty well! Thanks!
Beth Cover says
Shoot for the stars, you’ll at least reach the moon! When I get back from Wa, I’m defiantly talking the “project room” which I should call the tornado room!! Aargh
Sarah D. says
These look great. Thank you!
Kendra says
You’re welcome!!
Maria says
Trying to come up with a functional green cleaning routine has been a challenge. Thanks for sharing your ideas!