Tuesday, October 14, 2008

House Cleaning Tip #1

I am sure that my house is not the cleanest house on the block....yes, I am really sure about that. But I do like to have a clean house. I feel like I am always cleaning the house. My family is all about messing up the house. I guess I am not really talking about 'cleaning', but more about 'picking up'. Today, like most days, I was feeling overwhelmed with the 'picking up' part. I have learned to ignore the dust, crumbs, and fingerprints.....ok, that's a lie. I cannot really ignore those things. They do still irritate me but I must prioritize. "What can people see when standing at my front door or sitting at my kitchen table?" So I have come to the conclusion that on a daily basis, my goal is not to have a sparkling clean house but to have a house that appears orderly.

One thing I do to help me 'pick up' is to grab a basket for each person in our family. I used to use these white baskets that I bought specifically for this purpose but they always seem to be in use. Zachary uses his for all sorts of odds and ends. Emilie's is filled with her dress-up shoes. And Luke's is full of all the stuff I use when he has a diaper rash (Milk of Magnesia, Desitin, corn starch.....but that is a whole other post).

Zachary's basket

Emilie's basket

Luke's basket

So now I just grab whatever I can find. Today it was one laundry basket (for Matt and I) and three crates - one for each kid. I went through the family room, living room, kitchen, entry way and hallway and threw every one's stuff in the appropriate container. I also added the laundry that was in stacks (one stack for each person) on the couch. My house looked relatively clean in a very short amount of time.
Four baskets that need to be 'delivered' to their rooms.

Next on my agenda is to clean the bedrooms before I bring the baskets of stuff into the rooms. Baby steps.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I love that idea. I could use that!
Now I need you to walk me through what to do when all the toys exploded and then were thrown in together in a huge basket but belong with like ten separate "sets". Do you know what I mean? Blocks that go in a wagon, dolls from one playset, kitchen stuff for the play kitchen. I need a genius system to make sorting all that take less than 8 hours!

little miss mel said...

Good thinking!!

The only problem is, the boys' rooms are cleaner than any other place in the house. All that is in their rooms is books and beds.

All of their stuff resides out here. Would love to move everything into Rt's room, but then he would wake the baby during naps.

UGH.

Laura said...

you're a cleaning genius!!!

heather said...

Teri, I totally have a solution for you...I just need to get around to writing a post about it!

Laura said...

I'm ready for another cleaning tip, I need some inspiration as I sit here and put off the dreaded housecleaning that needs to be done.