Make sure you do a weekly kitchen cleaning even if your preventative measures (you are picking up, wiping spills and doing dishes daily, right?) are keeping your kitchen looking fairly approachable. As you are cleaning, do you best to work top to bottom in a circle around the room.

Many of the tasks below ask you to spray and wipe. You can either use retail all-purpose cleaner for this or a bleach and water cleaning mixture. When cleaning the kitchen it’s very important that, no matter what kind of cleaner you choose, it is one that not only cleans but also disinfects.

Your weekly cleaning should include all of the following tasks:
o Launder dishtowels, napkins, etc.
o Dishes (which should be done as part of your daily cleaning).
o Dust ceilings, doorways, tops of cabinets/fridge/shelves.
o Wipe down counters and everything on them including small appliances and canisters.
o Wipe down the outside and air vent of the fridge.
o Throw away expired items in the fridge and cupboards/pantry/shelves.
o Wipe down the inside of the fridge (if it needs it).
o Wipe down cabinets (if they need it — fingerprints, splatters, etc)
o Scrub the inside and outside of the microwave
o Check the inside of drawers for accidental spills
o Spray and wipe the stovetop including the hood and burners.
o Spray and wipe the outside of the oven.
o Clean the sink (powdered cleanser in the bowl, spray and wipe the rest)
o Clean windows
o Sweep and mop floors.

Other tasks such as the oven and major fridge clean out do not need to be done weekly, but should find a way into your schedule on a monthly or, at the least, biannual basis. Happy cleaning!

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Bathrooms are supposed to be the cleanest room in the house but, let’s face it, they are the most awful ones to clean.  It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.  Gather your cleaning supplies together and get to work!  When it is time for general house cleaning, it is a good idea to gather your cleaning supplies in a bin that you can carry around from place to place.  But because bathrooms can need so many different products for a really good clean, you should keep an additional separate bin for the bathrooms.  That bin should contain a soup scum and mildew remover, a basic bathroom surface cleaner, window washing fluid, toilet bowl cleaner, dust rags, sponges, a scrub brush, and floor cleaner.

The first step to cleaning a bathroom – as always – is to do some tidying.  Remove any dirty clothes or dirty towels (rugs too, periodically) and make sure that everything is in its place.  Once the picking-up is out of the way, it’s on to real cleaning.

Because for many of us the hardest part of cleaning the bathroom is cleaning the shower, it’s often best to start there.  (If you have a different least-favorite bathroom cleaning task, make it the first one you tackle.)  The shower takes a lot of elbow grease because it is the most likely place to get a build up of soap scum and mildew if it’s not cleaned on a regular basis.   If the soap scum in the shower is really bad, you can allow the cleaner to soak for a short while before you start scrubbing it.   There are also products that can hang on a showerhead that give a quick spray at the push of a button once someone finishes using the shower, and these can really help to keep the build-up down.  Don’t forget about cleaning the shower curtain or the shower door plus the track.  Be sure to rinse the shower really well with water after you have cleaned it, to get rid of loose dirt and chemicals from the cleaning fluids.

After the shower is cleaned, the next step in cleaning a bathroom is usually cleaning the mirrors, followed by dusting shelves, moldings, door frames and baseboards.   Next, clean the sink including the faucets.  Any product meant to clean bathroom or kitchen surfaces is fine for cleaning the sink.  This also includes any counter tops or the pedestal of a pedestal sink.

After you have cleaned the sink it is time to conquer the dirtiest job in the bathroom — the toilet.  There are several different areas of the toilet, and they all need to be cleaned.  The inside of the toilet can be cleaned with a regular toilet brush and a little bit of toilet bowl cleaner or a disposable toilet bowl cleaner.  The rim of the bowl and the under part of the lid and the seat also must to be wiped clean (particularly if you have boys in your house!).  The pedestal and back of the toilet can be cleaned with a good surface cleaner.

Your next-to-last bathroom task is to mop the floor.

I personally like to use paper towels to clean most surfaces of the bathroom.  Even though it is more eco-friendly to use sponges or rags, there are so many germs floating around the bathroom that I’d rather just use something to clean them that I can throw in the garbage.  Of course, I throw all of the dirty paper towels in the bathroom garbage so that my last step in cleaning the bathroom is emptying the garbage.

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It’s critical to use the right cleaning supplies when housework looms.  That is because using the right products is often vital to keeping the surfaces you are cleaning from getting damaged.  The wrong products can also create more effort and ultimately take up much more time when a better product will remove the dirt more easily.

Before you buy any cleaning product, be sure to read the label carefully.  The label should name the product’s uses and any important precautions.  Keep in mind that products labeled “all-purpose” may not be good for every surface when you look more carefully at the smaller print on the label.  Products that contain strong chemicals like ammonia may permanently damage laminates or other plastic surfaces.  Anything that is labeled for use on “nonporous surfaces” should not be used on granite or other stone surfaces.  Sometimes all you need is a mild soap with warm water, so while using the right products is important don’t assume that means you need to use the strongest cleaners for everything.

Whether you are doing a light clean or a deep spring clean, it is a good idea to get your essential cleaning supplies together before you start your cleaning.  But, what are the essential supplies that will be needed most often?  Well, think about the things that you plan to clean that day.  Start from the ceiling and work your way down to the floor.

One essential cleaning supply would be rags to dust cobwebs in the corners, ceiling fan blades, and the tops of shelves and ledges.  While there are a lot of products out that advertise “a better way to dust,” the truth is that an old rag will work just as well as these new products.  Socks that have lost their mates are great candidates for dust rags, especially since you can wash and reuse them.  For cobwebs, rags are all you need, but if you are dusting shelves and ledges a touch of furniture polish will help.

Another essential cleaning supply to add to your cleaning kit would be window washing liquid.  Most brand name products advertise a streak free shine with their product but truly bargain brands are just as effective – the trick is to avoid using paper towels that leave particles behind.   Use a cloth instead.

Other essential cleaning supplies include anti-bacterial sprays.  There are a lot of products out there that work well and are specifically made for cleaning different parts of the house.  Most are okay to use on an array of surfaces.  So, in your cleaning kit, I’d advise that you keep two — a spray that is specifically designed to clean hard soap scum and mildew, and a milder spray that can be used on kitchen or bathroom surfaces.

The last thing to clean in a room is the floor.  Mop, bucket, and floor cleaner are essential for cleaning a non-carpeted area but it is hardly practical to carry these things from room to room.  Keep these things together and pull them out when you are ready to use them.  Instead, keep a rug freshener like a powder or spray in your cleaning kit.

When your cleaning supplies are organized and easily accessible, the job of regular household cleaning can be fast, easy and efficient.

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It’s no surprise that people like their homes to be neat and tidy – after all, even animals like to keep the places they live clean!  But, for many of us, the work of house cleaning isn’t easy or intuitive. We want a roadmap — a set of speed cleaning tips.

For anyone hoping to wrangle order and cleanliness into their home, the big question is – you got it — where do you start?  The job of cleaning can appear so overwhelming that sometimes we want to stop before we even begin (am I right?).  So, before lugging out your cleaning equipment and supplies, start by tidying up the space you plan to clean.  With everything in its rightful place, you won’t be constantly starting and stopping the real cleaning to pick items up off of the floor or move the junk mail off the dining table.  You may not realize it, but this part of the cleaning is really the most strenuous. By using your energy to tackle the hardest part first, you’re less likely to run out of steam halfway through the cleaning job.  Even better, an orderly environment is much, much quicker to clean.

You can also get a head start and keep your cleaning routine organized by collecting all of your essential cleaning products for the room you are cleaning before you begin.  A small lightweight bin for carrying products around the room will help.  Typical products you should consider keeping in the bin are a window cleaner, antibacterial spray, carpet cleaner, and dust rags.   Make sure you have invested in good quality cleaning products that really work.  There’s no sense in wasting time trying to clean a dirty spot with an inferior product – you will just end up re-cleaning things that did not get cleaned well the first go-round.  Keep a smallish garbage bag tucked into that lightweight bin, too – this will keep you from having to run back and forth to the garbage can.

So now you are beginning with a tidy room and with supplies in hand.  It’s best to start from the top of the room and move your way down towards the floor.  Hit those cobwebs in the corners first, then dust shelves from the top down.  Finish with the floor.  This way, you avoid having a nice clean floor dirtied by new dust coming down as you clean.  It’s also important to clean one room at a time.  This might seem obvious, but you may be surprised at how often you run from room to room almost unconsciously when you don’t have a plan of attack. If you get one room thoroughly clean you will walk away with a sense of accomplishment, and you’ll save time and energy in the long run too.

Keeping a clean home is essential for a number of reasons.  Most of us notice when we enter someone else’s home immediately whether the house is clean or not.  That means your visitors are going to notice it too.  Further, homes that stay dirty are more likely to spread germs and cause illness for the people living in them.   Wherever you find dirt and moisture in combination, bacteria grows.  If you can keep those surfaces clean your family has its best chance to stay healthy.

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