How Do You Clean Your House?

I didn't intentionally set a schedule but I kind of fell into one because of how my days go. I can tell you that you're already more meticulous than I am.

I dust & vacuum once a week, usually on Monday. Other than daily needs like dishes and wiping counters in the kitchen, there is no room that I clean everyday. I do laundry every few days. I like to have a big pile to fold/hang while I watch tv.

I do my best but learned to not stress too much. My house will never stay clean so long as other people live in it with me, so I keep it at a level I can live with and call it Good Enough.

Clutter is a problem. We tend to hang onto things way too long and it builds up. I have two boxes and a bag for donation that will be picked up today.

I have given up on having a perfectly clean house.
It's liberating.
I do laundry when I have the chance, the kitchen is always clean (I can't stand cooking in a dirty kitchen), I clean the bathrooms once a week, I vacuum once a week.
I have more important things to do than clean!! At the end of tthe day I sometimes find myself telling everyone to take 10 minutes and do a quick pickup of their stuff around the house.
L.

I work full time, so.laundry, dusting, mopping, bathrooms and vacuuming is reserved for weekends. Dishes are done as they are dirtied and the living room is straightened up before bed time. Kitchen counters get wiped as they get dirtied during the week and then a good wiping on the weekend. Do bathrooms really need to be cleaned every day? Do floors need to be vacuumed every other day? That sounds like a lot to me!

Just want to add that you should point out to hubs (and perhaps yourself) that asking SD to help is a way of teaching her to be responsible and how to clean. It's part of a parents job to make sure their child can care for themselves as an adult and you'd be surprised at how surprised kids are that some things actually have to be cleaned (as opposed to just staying clean on their own.) Teaching a child to clean is just as important as teaching them to tie their shoes.

I pay someone else to clean my surfaces twice monthly. I know thats not what you were looking for, but I just wanted you to know that some of us discovered a long time ago that we could not keep up with kids and messy houses. So don't feel so bad if you never feel like you can keep up with it either.
When i ask my mom and mother-in-law and other women in my life who raised kids, worked, and maintained their own houses how they did it, the answer is always, "well, my house was never very clean."

The best advice I ever received while stressing being a mom of 2 and PTA president and generally overwhelmed with life was : LOWER YOUR STANDARDS !!!!!!! I know, sounds wierd, but your house really, truly does NOT have to be sparkly clean all the time. I do laundry once a week (sort it all into appropriate piles and do a few, large loads. I vacuum around once a week and use a "dust-buster" for small clean-ups. I try not to let the clutter sit around very long, and just tiding up helps when the "cleaning" has to be postponed for awhile.

My routine (very loose):

Morning dishes get done sometime before the afternoon and dinner dishes are done the night of. We alternate in the evenings, so one of us does bedtime duty and one does the dishes.

I sweep about every other day or so and usually vacuum once a week. We have hardwoods throughout most of the house (our son's room is the only one with carpeting). Floors are spot-cleaned for the most part. We have Marmoleum in the bathroom and kitchen, so it requires a cleanser and finishing wax sort of treatment. I'm not a super neatnik about things, which is why we chose the Marmoleum... it hides a lot of sins.

Dusting is done about once a month or so. I'm not a great housekeeper by any stretch of the imagination. Bathroom is thoroughly cleaned every so often, depending on necessity. Laundry: I am very on top of that. Right now, too, I'm in a push to sort through stuff; we are prepping for a garage sale with a substantial "free box" for people to pick through. The goal is to get space cleared in our basement for a Lego/arts room for my son and I to hang out in this summer to escape from the heat. So, this project also pulls me away from other tidy-ups.

Overall, the house is relatively picked up, but most of the time I'd rather be doing something else, and so I do. Dust is patient, it will be there tomorrow. :)

It's me, Hubs and our 3 year old. We both work, and he goes to full time pre-school (If you aren't in the house, it doesn't get as messy). Ours is also large, by NYC standards, but small by US standards, only 900 sq. feet.

We have a roomba and a scooba. I no longer mop or vaccum.
Hubs does the laundry once a week using the commercial double loaders in our building's basement. He irons and folds too.
We have and use a dishwasher.
We don't cook daily, but when we do cook, we cook 3-4x the amount (once for dinner, some for lunch, some for leftovers, and some for the freezer when we can't be bothered).
We tend towards tidy and like to clean as we go along (as does DS).
We don't have much clutter and are vigilant against introducing storage so as not to add more stuff to our homes, we purge regularly.
We each do 1 extra job a day (wiping the fridge, cleaning the microwave, washing out the garbage bins, dusting the bedframes, scrubbing the grout, wiping picture frames, dusting and washing light fixtures, cleaning the bookshelf, wiping the baseboards, scrubbing the kitchen chairs, washing the windows, etc). It takes about 5-10 minutes, but the cumulative effect shows.

Here's a concrete tip- take photos of your house. Sometimes seeing it in a picture helps you see those areas which need tidying that your eye has grown numb to.

Best, F. B.

Flylady.com! Really, I do her flylady lite emails and it reminds me of things I haven't done in a while. It also helps with my perfectionism that won't be satisfied, so I don't just stress and do nothing.

You need to give fly lady another try--it's awesome!

Get rid of stuff.
Then take a good look at what's left and get rid of some more.
The more empty the house is, the easier it is to clean.
Heck, if your floor is clear of junk, set a Roomba to vacuuming it for you.

A big part of it is having the kids help. I generally assign 3 chores each in the morning and 3 each in the afternoon. Mornings they are responsible for cleaning their bathroom (not a deep cleaning, but a pretty darn good one, because otherwise they leave toothpaste and toilet paper all over) and they each have a kitchen job (put away dishes, wipe counters, sweep) before leaving for school. When they get home, they have a list of 3 things to do, and those things change daily, but are often things like clean bedroom, dust entertainment center, get mail. Pick up living room, pick up yard, bring recycling bin in from road, Ya know, easy stuff (my kids are 11, 9 and 6). By the way, I did that even when I was a stay at home mom.

I usually keep a monthly list of all the big deep cleaning jobs that need to be done, and I just do that as I notice something that bothers me. For instance, right now we are opening a lot of windows as the weather warms up, so I am noticing the blinds and windows all need a cleaning. It is too much to clean them all at once, so I break it down by week. So this weekend, my deep cleaning jobs were to clean 3 windows and blinds, wash and vacuum out my car, clean my bathroom, weed the yard, and delegate the mowing and trimming to someone else.

With the other general maintenance, I usually make my bed in the morning, laundry I do a batch before work and then everyone puts their own away when I get home, I will wipe down the other 2 bathrooms with clorox wipes daily, I generally clean up after dinner (dishes, counters, put away food, wipe out microwave, sweep); take out the trash daily, gather up dirty laundry daily. Saturdays we all pitch in to vacuum and mop.

Laundry daily
Dust and clean glass (windows and mirrors) twice a week
Clean bathroom once a week
vacuum whole house twice a week
Mop twice a week
Wash bed linens once a week
Vacuum living room daily or every other day
Dishes washed after every meal, usually 3 times a day

My kids are completely in charge of cleaning up toys. My husband takes care of trash.

If you're feeling stressed then you're doing too much. Or you own too much.

I clean what I can when I can. The only thing that gets done every day is the six cat litter boxes and the rabbit litter box. I sweep up the animal hair every few days. I load the dishwasher when the sink gets full. I do laundry when I have enough for a full load.
I looked at flylady a while back, and it's too ocd for me. I'm just not THAT worried about my house being THAT clean. I don't need floors you can eat on - I have plates for that. Anyone who knows me knows that if they come to my house expecting a Martha Stewart experience, they are going to be sorely disappointed.

invite people over a few times a year.
it's really the only thing that motivates me.
i clean the kitchen and bathrooms frequently, but the world is just too interesting to faff about with the rest of it much.
:) khairete
S.

I run the dishwasher / laundry at 8pm...To save on electricity.
I find that if I fill the washing machine during the day, it's full for the 8pm cycle ! I press on---and it's good to go !

I vacuum every other day, too.

I do not worry to much about the bedrms...They are usually kinda messy.
I keep the most used space the cleanest.

I clean the kitchen and downstairs bathrm almost every day because they r used sooo much.

Other than that, I clean the DR, LR and hallway once a week !

I will never get ahead. I think it is impossible--if you "live" in the house.
My husband hates the "museum" type houses...So, all the cleaning is up to me. So, I do what I can. I clean well before company...Other than that, I take it in stride. I do not have the energy I had 10 yrs ago.

We use two separate ways of cleaning - one for the school year (I teach) and one for the summer when I am home.

During the school year:
Daily: deal with dishes, sweep floor after dinner, wipe counters, big sink messes, table, etc.
Weekends:
Friday night: All laundry
Saturday: floors, counters, bathrooms, vacuum, dust
Sunday: anything that didn't get done Saturday. We clean Saturday as a family (cleaning party is our name for it), so usually it all gets done in about 3-4 hours

During the summer - my husband has Sunday and Monday off, so our "schedule" is made around that.
Every Day: dishes, counters, table cleaned up, and outside toys cleaned up.
Tuesday: Living room and vacuum stairs
Wednesday: The kids clean their bedrooms and I clean up ours, which winds up being supervising them as well
Thursday: Playroom gets a full cleaning
Friday: Kitchen and office (kids help with wiping cabinet doors and baseboards)
Saturday: Bathrooms (kids clean theirs while I clean ours and monitor/help them)

Laundry gets done as needed, usually about a load every other day.

We do a massive clean out and donate the first full week we are done with school, and then the last full week before it starts up, also again during holiday break in December.

I know you said you don't want to enlist the help of your kids, but are they doing some chores? Ours are "family chores", part of them being a part of the family. They don't mind it, and they are learning lessons for the future. Just my 2 cents.

I wish I was better at this too! A while ago I found the Motivated Mom's website. http://www.motivatedmoms.com/
This has a small daily checklist of things for you to do, but basic daily things to do every day. I bought the app for my phone and love the convenience. I really appreciate that it includes things like cleaning out my purse or cutting the kids nails. It makes the chores simple and I love the feeling I get when I've checked off everything for that day. I know from experience that if you use it every day, it does a great job of keeping the house neat and tidy. Plus, because it splits up the chores, no day feels too daunting.

If I know that I'll have a busy day, I'll make sure that I get those chores done ahead of time or the next day. With four sons and a husband who works a lot, it makes the chores easier. I have been known to print off the list of things to do and have each person initial what chores they're going to do.

I couldn't do Fly lady too. It was too many e-mails and I quickly felt overwhelmed. Motivated Moms has worked for me.