Week 1 of a clean and organized house

My friends often wonder how I keep my house so clean and organized. I tell them first, my kids are at school so I only have the pleasure of an uber clean house from 8am-4pm, after that its every man for himself. Just kidding it’s not THAT bad! Even then after the kids get home we keep a pretty clean house and it starts with running a tight ship (no neither myself or my husband was in the military). I am going to start a weekly post about what to do to keep your house clean and organized, I hope that you follow along!

Week 1 of a clean and organized house:

First things first, you have to find a place for your stuff! You have a home and so should your stuff! And no not crammed into the infamous junk drawer we all have, yes I EVEN I have one. Find a place for your craft stuff, your pencils, pens and extra paper. Find a place for you mail. A place for your purse and your husband’s junk stuff he leaves around the house.

A couple of useful tips for this:

1.       use baskets! You can get them at any dollar store for really cheap and the ones they have at the Dollar Store are really cute, just take out the ugly cheap fabric inlay and voila you have a cute basket! I keep one on the table in my laundry room/mud room and it keeps our bibles and sunglasses and misc stuff we are taking in and out during the week.

2.       get a manly catch all/tech charger for your dresser or closet shelf if you are lucky and have a plug in your closet. Only my husband uses this and it keeps all his stuff clean. Sometimes however I have to put it there for him, but either way it makes his mess of cell/wallet/keys/blah blah blah nice and neat and all in one place.

3.       which leads me to the next point. When you make a mess pick up the mess! If your having a bad clothing day and all your cloths are on the floor instead of on the hangers take a few minutes to put them back. This is so basic, and most of us require it of our kids! When you get something out put it back when you are done. It is so much easier and less time consuming which = HAPPY if you just take a few minutes.

4.       wipe the inside of cabinets when you put your dishes away. I don’t know about you but the insides of my cabinets get dirty with who knows what, so when I’m putting the dishes away I grab a damp paper towel and wipe them up real quick. It adds an extra 5 minutes to the task of putting your dishes away but hey the result is so nice!

5.       clean your sinks! It is a proven fact that clean sinks not only make an area look cleaner but this too makes you happy! Wipe em out real quick and make the kids responsible for their bathroom! No reason we should be cleaning up their nasty toothpaste mess.

6.       make the bed! Just like #5 so simple and the end result is so fantastic. A messy bed makes me mad so I just make it when I get out of it.

7.       And last but not least for quick and easy fixes is invest in a swiffer vac if you have tile or wood and use it! I personally vouch that they are amazing! I swiffer like a mad woman but I have found like the sinks and beds clean floors make me happy. And I am willing to spend 10 minutes swiffering up the dog hair and kid dust to put a smile on my face. I swiffer often, when I get up, after breakfast, mid day and after dinner. Yes I realized this is A LOT of swiffering but we have two dogs and in Texas where we live particularly there is a lot of sandy dirt so it is tracked in a lot during the day.

Simple and easy and if done you will find you have an overall cleaner and more organized house. Next weeks post…What to keep, What to give away!

-Jen-