Tag: house cleaning

Welcome to my House Hour. Now excuse me while I start some laundry…

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001In last week’s blog, I mentioned my House Hour.  I didn’t give it a thought, it’s just what I do.  However, two readers asked “What do you mean by your “house hour”? Is this cleaning, straightening, laundry? Is it one hour everyday or when you can fit it in? Hmmm…”

Let me explain.

Last Friday morning, moments before receiving my friend’s email, I was wiping down my bathroom sink.   

Why? 

Well, because it was Friday.  That’s what I do on Friday.

Why 7:30 am?

As mentioned, “Clean the Bathroom” is a Friday chore.  And my Friday was shaping up to be busy, so 7:30 am was a good time to complete the task.  Also, everyone was already showered and ready-ish for school, so if I cleaned the bathroom at 7:30 am, there was a pretty good chance it would stay clean for a while.  Bonus!

My House Hour is the hour I spend on routine cleaning tasks every day.  For many years, I would wait and clean my whole house one day a week.  That worked for a while, but I hit some snags:

  1. My schedule rarely allows for an entire day dedicated to staying home and cleaning. 
  2. After 6 or more days of inattention, my house dirt and clutter really bothers me.
  3. There are some tasks that require repeating multiple times during the week, like laundry and vacuuming.
  4. As a child, Saturday was our cleaning day, but that absolutely doesn’t work with our schedule.

Here’s my cleaning schedule: http://www.peaceofmindpo.com/DailyCleaningChart.pdf

      This system works for us because I have a small and organized house, and my family is pretty good about cleaning up.  If my house was bigger, I would probably have to spend more than an hour.

       In addition, my House Hour does not always include things like laundry (a never-ending cycle), or cleaning up the kitchen after a meal.  Those are routine chores.   When the two go together, like when kitchen cleaning is on the House Hour list, too, it’s nice to get things done faster!

      Cleaning different areas of my home a little bit every day allows me to skip a day if I need to, so long as I catch up the next day.  And since the house stays relatively clean, I can be flexible and spontaneous for events or friends stopping over.

If you like this idea, make it your own.  Determine the list of things that need to be done every week, then distribute the tasks over a few days. 

  1. Be prepared to work around external motivators:
    1. Weather:  today I ditched my regular House Hour so that I could take care of yard work after a few rainy days.  In addition, when you only have an hour to spend, and you spend it shoveling snow or raking leaves, you have to be flexible!
    2. Garbage day is a great motivator for clearing clutter and recycling, and emptying all the trash!
    3. Pay day – my hubby’s pay schedule changed recently. Now Menu planning occurs every other Friday instead of twice a month on arbitrary days, which links nicely with the kitchen cleaning day.
  2. Take your schedule and your family’s rhythms into account – I like to knock out my tasks in the morning (though that doesn’t always work!!), but perhaps you prefer an hour in the evening every other day or so. Great, go for it.
  3. Leave room for large projects.  We have a few Fall projects to accomplish in the next few weeks:  put screens on the gutters, fix the fence, wash the windows, and I really need to strip and re-wax my kitchen floor.  This weekend or next, we need to clear an afternoon for these bigger projects.
  4. Determining your plan ONCE and sticking with it means you’ll never have to feel overwhelmed and searching for a starting place again!

So, pick an idea or two from this week, make your plan and make your cleaning schedule your own.

Let Me Introduce You To My Hall Closet (aka Linen Closet)

An appealing aspect of class participants coming to my home is the opportunity to look around for organizing ideas. Even my cleaning people mentioned last week that they pick up ideas at my house!  I created a house walking tour for the classes I host here.

I spent time in two different linen closets last week (I really do have the coolest job), so I’d like to share the tour with you, starting with the Linen Closet (aka the Hall closet).

First of all, I don’t call our linen closet a linen closet.  I call it the hall closet, because there are no linens and only a few towels in it.  We keep our bed linens in our bedrooms, where we use them.  There are only 2 extra sets of towels in the closet, because really, how many extra sets would we possibly need?  The kids’ towels are on hooks on their bedrooms, I use the ones in the bathroom, and there are 2 extra sets in the downstairs bathroom, in addition to those my hubby uses daily.  I do laundry regularly, so we don’t need to keep more than an extra set or two.  Paring down the towels certainly cuts the closet clutter!

I have one set of cleaning supplies for most of the house.  There is extra dish and Imagedishwasher detergent under the kitchen sink, but almost everything else is corralled in the hall closet into a portable caddy and a clear oblong bucket.  The caddy contains my regular cleaning supplies, and I carry it from room to room with me when I clean.  The bucket holds special items like leather and carpet cleaner, and the bottles of concentrates that I purchase then mix with water to make my own supplies (love my Melaleuca!!).

Moving down the shelves, we come to our hygiene and wellness shelf.  I have two Imagesquare baskets side by side that hold the bottles and supplies that usually roll around linen closets, getting lost or in the way.  One basket holds our toiletry inventory.  I take advantage of sales for our toiletries, buying multi packs of body wash, deodorant, bar soap, toothpaste, chapsticks, etc.  When someone runs out of an item, they check the basket to see what we have in stock.

The other basket holds our medicine and first aid supplies.  It’s safer to store medicine in the hallway and not in the hot steamy bathroom, and we don’t use them often, anyway.  And when my kids were younger, the medicine basket was on a much higher and safer shelf.  When someone is feeling poorly, with a cold for example, the cough medicine, throat drops and vapo-rub are all together in one location.

The very top shelf holds items rarely used, like heating pads or beach towels.  I move the beach towels down to a lower shelf for the summer.  And the bottom shelf holds Imagepaper towel, toilet paper, tissue and paper cup inventory.  There is more TP in a drawer in the bathroom, but we have more storage room for large packages out in the hall closet.  No once can ever say they can’t find a box of tissues or extra paper towels.

And finally, on the floor is the communal laundry basket, so no one can ever say they couldn’t put their stuff in the laundry basket, either!!!

One area of untapped closet storage space is the door.   If you find you need more storage, you could use an over-the-door shoe rack and stash toiletries or first aid items in the pockets.  I have also seen long table linens hung on over-the-door towel racks for wrinkle-free storage.

So, if we were touring your linen closet, which type of item causes the most clutter?  Towels?  Cleaning supplies, paper goods, bottles of shampoo, band-aids?  You decide, and try one of the tips above to eliminate the clutter and make the most of your linen closet!