Part One
Part Two
Kick off the New Year with a three-month plan to clean and organize room by room. With this weekly plan for cleaning, de-cluttering, and organizing you’ll have a home you love and can enjoy by spring!
When you work in small weekly, bite-sized projects a big job seems much easier. Tackling one room a week means by spring, you’ll be ready for outdoor fun. Be sure to stick to just one room a week to avoid overwhelm and burn out.
January 2013
Week 1 – Gather Tools
Before you start any clean projects make sure you have everything you need for the job. There’s nothing worse than stalling momentum because you’re out of product or you don’t have the right tools. Some of our favorite tools are:
- Speed Cleaning Apron & tools
- High quality feather duster
- 100% cotton cleaning towels
- Microfiber towels
- Red Juice, Blue Juice, Tile Juice, Pro Scrub
- Sh-Clean, Sh-Mop
- Furniture Feeder
- Premium furniture Polish
- Pumice Stick
- Scrubbing pads
- Speed Erasers
- Powerful vacuum with attachments
Week 2 – Foyer
- Use a basic remove it, then clean it, and replace it strategy for all wall hangings like mirrors, pictures, sconces, etc.
- Clean front door windows or side-lights
- Thoroughly vacuum the rug
- Hand wash woodwork (trim, baseboards, etc.)
- Sort through old coats and accumulated clutter in the coat closet
- Break old habits of leaving clutter on foyer tables or chairs
Week 3 & 4 – Living room & Family Room
- Dust and clean everything on the walls (pictures, mirrors, décor, built-in shelves)
- Hand wash woodwork (trim, baseboards, etc.)
- Clean ceiling fans, light fixtures
- Vacuum tops of drapes, curtain rods
- Vacuum blinds, window sills, ledges
- Vacuum all upholstered furniture, pop up cushions and vacuum underneath
- Vacuum intake vents
- Dust down cobwebs in corners, along ceiling
- Dust walls
- Clean TV screen, electronics, and sort and organize videos and CDs
Part Two:
Week 5 & 6 – Kitchen, Pantry, & Utility Closet
- Wash cabinet fronts (then use Furniture Feeder for a finishing touch)
- Remove refrigerator grate at bottom of doors, scrub with toothbrush
- Remove the stainless steel mesh screen inside vent-a-hood & run through dishwasher
- Remove and hand wash light globes, clean ceiling fan blades in place
- Clean oven – Use “self-cleaning” oven setting, or spray oven with oven cleaner
- Remove everything from fridge, clean shelf by shelf, and drawers (the day before you shop so it’s already sparse)
- Empty the pantry completely. Throw away old food, out dated cans, items you will never use
- Only put back what you know you will use, de-clutter 1/3 to 1/2 of the contents
- Sort through collection of plastic containers, get rid of bottoms without lids, reduce how many you keep overall
- De-clutter pots & pans drawer – if you’ve kept old pots, frying pans long past their use, toss them out
- Clean out the closet with too many old mops, ratty dusters, brooms with bent bristles. Replace with new tools that actually work!
- Clean out that cabinet with all the cleaning products, throw away mostly empty bottles, old cleaners you don’t use, nasty old sponges, old rubber gloves that hardened and cracked a long time ago, etc.
Week 7 & 8 – Family Room & Dining Room
- Vacuum the tops of drapes, blinds, lock ledges
- Vacuum upholstered furniture with vacuum attachments
- Lift sofa cushions and whisk out debris, or vacuum up crumbs, dust, hair
- Dust down cobwebs found in high corners of the ceiling with flexible duster
- Sort through DVD & game drawers, get rid of excess or broken media
- Wash light switch plate with Red Juice
- Wash wood work, baseboards, moldings, trim, wood doors (if it’s white use Red Juice, if it’s stained wood wash with Sh-Clean, then polish to a gleam with our Premium Furniture Polish)
- Vacuum lamp shade with attachments
- Vacuum along the edges of the carpets with crevice tool
- Hand clean mirrors, wall hangings, picture frames
Week 9 & 10 – Bathrooms & Bedrooms
- Sort through the medicine cabinet & throw out old medicine, expired meds, partially used meds (consider moving them to another location as the moisture in a bathroom is not good for storing meds anyway)
- Replenish your first aid kit supplies that are low (peroxide, alcohol, band aids, etc)
- Sort through cabinets stuff full with partially used creams, lotions, perfumes, soaps and toss
- Get rid of mounds, and mounds of hotel soaps, shampoos, conditioners, and lotions that you’ve collected more of than you’ll ever use. Consider donating to a homeless shelter or local charity, or church for missions field
- Wash cabinet and drawer fronts, removing dust, toothpaste, and hairspray. Polish up with Furniture Feeder or Premium Furniture Polish so they will gleam
- Clean around faucet knobs, back and base of faucets, with a toothbrush
- Wash inside of trash cans
- Take decorative glass toothbrush holder, cup, soap dish, and run through the dishwasher (top rack)
- Replace a moldy shower curtain (they’re so cheap it’s not worth the time to scrub it), and brand new liner just feels good
- Hand wash light globes
- Remove the gray lime scale stains from the toilet with a pumice stick (works wonders)
- Clean the bathroom scale
- Hand wash baseboards, doors, trim
Kids Rooms, Master bedroom:
- Clean the shelves off first (examine, toss or save, donate or replace) de-clutter toys, books, broken crayons, puzzles with missing pieces, etc.
- Empty every drawer, remove clothing they’ve out grown, too stained to wear, or just out dated and undesirable (donate or toss), fold and replace only the “keepers”
- Clean under the beds, dust bunnies, or storage boxes, clear out, clean, sort, put back
- Wash doors, moldings, wood work, vacuum blinds
- Hand clean ceiling fans, light globes
- Box up keep-sakes that are in the way and cluttering the room, label and store in the attic
- Sort through shoes, get rid of all but the ones worn regularly (toss or donate)
- Sort through magazines, stacks of books, get rid of what you don’t read (sell books, toss the magazines)
- Silk plants aren’t expensive, replace old dusty arrangement with a fresh spring bouquet–it’s will look so clean and new!
Week 11 & 12 – Miscellaneous Areas
- Sort through the hall coat closet, donate to charity any coats, gloves, boots, scarves no one uses
- Front porch – sweep, dust down cobwebs, wash and polish front door, shine up the door metal, get rid of old pots with no flowers, buy a new out door rug
- Linen closet – take everything out first. Get rid of towels with holes, wash cloths that are stained (send to the “rag bag”), mis-matched sheets and pillow cases, re-fold and replace only what you use
You’re all finished! Just in time for Spring, so you can spend time in the great outdoors! Doesn’t that feel good? How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! How do you Spring Clean your home? One room at a time, not all in one weekend. Overwhelm will keep you from starting. Start small, one room or even one area at a time. Plan your Spring Cleaning, tackle it with a vengenence and you’ll be playing outdoors before you know it.
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