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Saturday, June 2, 2012

The cleaning routine

Hi all,
Sam has gone in work this morning to do some overtime, so I've spent most of the morning cleaning.
Cleaning.. Ahh I remember the blissful days when I lived with my parents, and didn't have to lift a finger in the house.. those days were the best.


So now I am mother, I take on the massive responsibility of running our household. Don't laugh, it's no mean feat!
I spend roughly around 14 hours a week just cleaning our house, which is 12 rooms. I'm not the only one who does it, Heidi does a fair share and Sam will do anything if I ask him to. I strongly believe in getting children to help around the house, as I mentioned above, I never had to do anything so when I moved out it was a real slap in the face! I want Heidi to grow up with a good cleaning ethic, so it becomes normal to her and she doesn't see it as a big boring task, but something that has to be done like brushing teeth, having a bath etc..
My cleaning routine goes like this..


I ask Heidi to clean the living room before she goes to nursery, which is taking her toys back to the playroom, putting all of the rubbish in the bin, she polishes our glass table and tidies away Connors things. I then run the hoover around, wipe any marks off anything I can see and then shut the door to the living room for the morning. In the kitchen; I put all of the dishes in soak, I wipe down all the sides and cupboards, sweep the floor, wash the dishes and put them away. After tea at about 7pm, the kitchen gets wiped down again and all the dishes go into the sink. I put a wash on in the morning, hang it out at noon and then fold it all up ready to be put away.


^ That's what gets done everyday, without fail.
I do an upstairs 'big clean' twice a week in all our upstairs rooms. Toilets get bleached and scrubbed three times a week, and bathrooms get cleaned once/twice as it doesn't really get that dirty. Bedsheets are changed every 2 weeks. Every other day I focus on one room and get it completely sparkling.


This routine has taken me 3 years to perfect, I tried making lists, rotas, putting post-it notes up and even a reminder would pop up on my phone but nothing worked, the house still stayed messy no matter how much I tried to keep it clean. It was very stressful! I find now that little and often works best.. I feel like I don't clean that much but the house stays tidy for most of the time.. Although if I do have a day off then everything does seem that little bit grubbier..


Sam is a bit of a clean freak. He can't stand mess and won't sit in a dirty house, he was bought up with chores that has stayed with him into his adult life. I hope our kids do the same!


What's your cleaning routine? 



1 comment:

  1. Twelve rooms and doing all those chores everyday?! You must be a SuperMom to have the energy to do all these! =D I, myself, am a neat freak. But there are times when I feel lethargic, probably because I spend most of my time worrying about work more than how I would clean my house. What I do to not let my house stay unkempt is to hire someone to do the cleaning for me. One guy can finish the entire house in one day. And I can even give the cleaning service crew a ring when I have boxes or whatever stuff that I need to dispose of.

    Tyler Perkins

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