Living Room Cleaning

Today on top of my daily cleaning, I "deep" cleaned my living room. The list looks like this:

1. Shake out door mat
2. Mop floors
3. Dust
4. Disinfect

I don't go all crazy and dust every surface, just the top of the TV, the entertainment center, and the side tables. And my disinfecting just includes spraying disinfectant on all the surfaces that are touched on a regular basis: light switches, lamp switch, all controllers for video games and TV, and the buttons on the Xbox and TV.

Monthly Cleaning

I didn't get to the monthly cleaning yesterday because I decided to spend time with family instead. So I tackled it today. It consisted of the following:

1. Organize the pantry
2. Organize the bathroom products
3. Check for mold in bathroom
4. Vacuum furniture
5. Change bedding (which I did Friday to combine it with laundry day)
6. Organize wardrobe

As I'm still newly married, organizing the pantry just consists of moving around all of the spices, tupperware, and dishes that I continue to collect as I get better at cooking. I also took the time to look through everything under the bathroom sink and throw away everything that I don't use or that is old. I also found some mold on the bathroom ceiling (yuck!) so I took care of that. And I'm a pretty organized person and so organizing the wardrobe for me consists of making sure there are no stray hangers lurking around, picking up everything that may have fallen on the closet floor, and making sure everything is season appropriate.
Also, as I go about cleaning out my pantry, I combine as much stuff together as possible. For example, I take all the Crystal Lite packets and combine them as much as possible into one container. I also like to use the old containers for other storage purposes around the house. I used my leftover one today to put all my brushes for painting in my craft bin!
Monday continues the daily cleaning plus the "deep" cleaning of the living room.

Laundry Day

So today is Friday, and as I am completing my daily chores list that I mentioned yesterday, I am also completing LAUNDRY DAY! Now, doing all of the laundry all in one day works for me because it's just me and my husband. Therefore, we typically only have 3-4 loads a week, making it simple to complete in one day. I will have an additional load today because I'm washing all of our bedding, which I do once a month. Right now the detergent that I'm using is the Great Value Original Clean and it works great as far as I'm concerned. We usually don't have too many tough stains to work out, though, so it's not hard to please me.


Something that I'm looking forward to doing is using a version of all the DIY laundry detergents that you see on Pinterest.
I'm waiting until my current store bought detergent runs out (waste not!) to buy the ingredients for the powder version that you see to the right. Also, because it's the last weekend of the month, tomorrow will consist of all of my monthly chores (which hopefully will be expedited by the help of my wonderful husband).

Daily Cleaning

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to make a house cleaning schedule and STICK TO IT! Thus far, I've been able to do just that (it helps that I'm only working part time right now). I thought I'd share what my cleaning looks like on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. Also, I love to test out homemade cleaning products (the goal is, after all, to clean the house on a budget). I also include home organization and decluttering in the cleaning process because a clean home is an organization home. I've gotten ideas for cleaning schedules from many other places and have simply personalized it to my own house and time schedule. Basically, I do the same daily cleaning 5 days a week and then pick different rooms of the house to do "deep" cleaning once a week. My daily cleaning schedule looks like this:

1. Make beds
2. Declutter rooms (put everything where it's supposed to go)
3. Quick sweep bedrooms, living room, and kitchen
4. Wash dishes
5. Clean out the cat litter (my favorite)
6. Wipe down counters and table (my cat likes my kitchen surfaces)
7. Quick wipe down of sink and toilet

This routine can take me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour depending on what day it is (the house is always messier after the weekend) and how many dishes I have to clean (which is usually a lot because we don't eat out often). The "declutter rooms" step always seems daunting to people, but it you do it every day, it really doesn't take much time.

Also, since today is Thursday, the master bedroom and guest room get "deep cleaned." I put the quotations because it's not like I'm on my hands and knees scrubbing, they just get some extra attention. So their "deep cleaning" includes

1. Mopping the hardwood floors (with my spray mop)
2. Vacuuming the rug
3. Dusting the dressers, night stands, and desk
4. Wiping down the mirror
5. Disinfecting

See? Not much extra work for a clean room if you've done the daily tasks right before.