With the holidays upon us, let’s revisit a popular theme for this time of year. Focus areas for cleaning during the holidays. Believe it or not, you can accomplish your house cleaning and organizing needs for a holiday-ready home without much effort.
If you break it down into manageable parts, your holiday cleaning doesn’t have to be overwhelming. House cleaning this way can help keep you focused and calm, allowing you to enjoy a stress-free time with your family and guests this holiday season. If you have already done a thorough job of household cleaning and organizing each quarter (like we highly recommend), you will have less housekeeping to do for the holiday season.
If your whole house is due for a house cleaning overhaul this holiday season, decide which rooms are the most important to have cleaned and start there. If you are not expecting overnight guests, the spare bedroom is probably not a priority. This will leave you with the option to simply shut the spare bedroom doors.
Common Areas
As always, the main priority is high traffic areas. Guests are likely to be in your kitchen, living room, and bathroom or sitting at your dining room table. Begin your housecleaning routine in the main common areas of your home. If you have extra time, you can focus on organizing the bedrooms or cleaning the office.
Start household cleaning with a top to bottom dusting of walls and ceilings. This cuts down on the dust level in the house throughout the coming year and is a helpful all natural house cleaning method to keeping your home dust free. Dust off and clean your tables, counters, bookshelves, entertainment centers and other surfaces before thoroughly cleaning the hidden areas and nooks. Wipe over all woodwork, doors, windowsills and baseboards. Pull out furniture that has not been cleaned behind recently and clean the surface by hand wiping or vacuuming. Clean the floors in the high traffic areas of your home last, as you want to keep this step as close to the arrival time of your guests as possible. Clean floors make a big impact.
Restrooms
Clean restrooms are a must in order to be ready for visitors. Begin by wiping down the counters and giving a good scrubbing to the toilet and shower. Place out an extra roll of toilet paper so guests won’t have to go hunting for it, refill the hand soap, and putting out fresh hand towels.
Passageways
Organize the hallways and staircases, areas that tend to gather clutter as family members drop and disperse their belongings from one room to the next. Sweep or vacuum up any debris in this area before company comes. If there are any side rooms or closets that you don’t have time to clean, walk through your clean home just prior to your guests arrival and make sure the doors to these areas are closed.
Kitchen
Enjoy your clean home and start the holidays with a clean kitchen. Guests are likely to enter your kitchen, whether to gather and help you prepare the meal or to help set the table. Clean the counters and appliances by wiping them down, then mop and clean the floors before guests arrive. Make sure you have an empty dishwasher on the day of the event so you can quickly and easily place dirty dishes away, keeping them out of sight as soon as they accumulate. With any extra time, hose down your trash can and use a pleasant scented garbage bag so the trash won’t add any unwelcome odors to the day’s festivities.
We know you can manage cleaning your home this holiday season, but if you would rather let us do it for you, call us today at 541-601-6236 for a quote or a gift certificate.
Since February is the month of love, we’re publishing some of our favorite things! Not much is better than saving time, space, and sanity. So, today we are sharing some of our favorite “life hacks” for kitchen and bathroom organization.
Kitchen
We stuff so many appliances, utensils, dishes, and groceries into one of the smallest parts of our home. No matter the size of your kitchen, everyone could use more storage. Here are a few of our favorite fresh storage ideas for your kitchen that we found on LifeHack.org’s list of 31 Clever Ways to Organize and Clean Your Kitchen:
Hanging Rack (#7)
Pots and pans can take up much of your cabinet space if you let it. One of the best choices you can make is to invest in a hanging rack for pots, pans, and lids. You can buy an overhead rack as seen in #7, or you can find one to hang from the wall.
Cutting Board (#4)
Free up counter space by finding a cutting board that can fit over your sink. Wash, peel, and cut your veggies all in one space.
Kitchen tablet (#9)
Replace paper calendars and cookbooks or recipe boxes with a more space-efficient electronic device. If you have an extra or unused tablet lying around, you can dedicate it to the kitchen and mount it on the inside of a cabinet or above the backsplash.
Under Cabinet Hooks
Turn your tea cup or coffee mug collection into interesting kitchen décor. This Kitchn blog shows us a beautiful example of this Pretty Storage Idea here. You can learn how to install your own mug hooks by reading this guide from the San Francisco Gate.
Bathroom
Bathrooms can never be big enough. No matter how space-efficient that new shower, complete with a frameless glass wall to spare extra room, is it never seems like there’s enough places to put everything that needs to be stored away in there. Does it seem like you are always running out of storage space? Don’t let your vanity or linen closet overwhelm you. Get control of the mess with some of these helpful ideas for organization.
Above the Door
This may be our favorite “hack” of all. Turn unused space into a storage solution by simply installing a shelf above the inside of your door. Check it out here. This can make a great spot for towels or baskets with extra toiletries.
Vanity
From ice cube trays, to drawer dividers, to paper towel holders—everyday household items can be extremely helpful in organizing your vanity. There are several awesome ideas in this Redbook article. Check out numbers 1 through 10 for all your vanity organization needs!
Our favorite vanity clearing tip is #16 on this Cosmopolitan list. Keep all those little, hard to find items like clippers, bobby pins, and tweezers organized with a magnet strip.
Linen Closet
The linen closet can quickly become a nightmare if you do not have a practical approach to storing your towels and blankets. In this Life Storage article, they recommend 8 organizational tips for controlling the closet. Our favorites are numbers 3 and 4.
- Rolling towels instead of folding them creates more space
- Storing fitted and flat sheets inside their matching pillow cases keeps everything organized.
Keeping It Clean
We’d love to help you keep your newly organized home spick and span! But, if you aren’t even sure where to begin, we offer organizational services by professional organizers as well. Call us now at 541-601-6236 to schedule a consultation.
Ready For Guests!
Believe it or not, you can accomplish your house cleaning and organizing needs for a holiday-ready home without much effort.
House Cleaning Tips:
Your holiday house cleaning can be broken down into manageable parts. House cleaning this way can help keep you focused and calm, allowing you to enjoy a stress-free time with your family and guests this holiday season. If you have already done a thorough job of household cleaning and organizing back in May and the summer sand has been swept out in July, and the mildew cleaned up in September, you will have less housekeeping to do for the holiday season.
If your whole house is due for a house cleaning overhaul this holiday season, decide which rooms are the most important to have cleaned and start there. If you are not expecting overnight guests, do your final organizing and cleaning in the spare bedroom last. This will leave you with the option to simply shut the spare bedroom door, if you have last minute guests arrive for dinner. Do the same thing for cleaning the kids’ rooms, if needed, unless these rooms will be used by overnight guests.
- High traffic areas – When you invite guests for dinner, they probably won’t check your son’s bedroom closet to see if it is organized or peek in your office to see if it is clean. Guests are likely to be in your kitchen, living room, and bathroom or sitting at your dining room table. Begin your housecleaning routine in the main common areas of your home. If you have extra time, you can focus on organizing the bedrooms, cleaning the office or simply keep the doors to those rooms closed on the big day.
- Visible Spaces – Start household cleaning with a top to bottom dusting of walls and ceilings. This cuts down on the dust level in the house throughout the coming year and is a helpful all natural house cleaning method to keeping your home dust free. Dust off and clean your tables, counters, bookshelves, entertainment centers and other surfaces before thoroughly cleaning the hidden areas and nooks. Wipe over all woodwork, doors, windowsills and baseboards. Pull out furniture that has not been cleaned behind recently and clean the surface by hand wiping or vacuuming. Clean the floors in the high traffic areas of your home last, as you want to keep this step as close to the arrival time of your guests as possible. They will see a sparkling clean house when they arrive.
- Bathrooms – Take a look through your bathrooms and make sure they are clean and ready for visitors. This includes wiping down the counters and giving a good scrubbing to the toilet and shower, placing out an extra roll of toilet paper so guests won’t have to go hunting for it if they need it, refilling the hand soap and putting out fresh hand towels. Close your shower curtain to hide all those bath items inside and keep your medicine cabinet closed.
- Passageways – Organize the hallways and staircases, areas that tend to gather clutter as family members drop and disperse their belongings from one room to the next. Sweep or vacuum up any debris in this area before company comes. If there are any side rooms or closets that you don’t have time to clean, walk through your clean home just prior to your guests arrival and make sure the doors to these areas are closed.
- Kitchen – Enjoy your clean home and start the holidays with a clean kitchen. Guests are likely to enter your kitchen, whether to gather and help you prepare the meal or to help set the table. Clean the counters and appliances by wiping them down, then mop and clean the floors before guests arrive. Make sure you have an empty dishwasher on the day of the event so you can quickly and easily place dirty dishes away, keeping them out of sight as soon as they accumulate. With any extra time, hose down your trash can and use a pleasant scented garbage bag so the trash won’t add any unwelcome odors to the day’s festivities.
Focusing your intent and initiative on these house cleaning tips, will bring results and peace of mind, as well as a sense of accomplishment and a very clean home life! We are here to help you. Happy house cleaning!
