The Saturday before Halloween we had a pumpkin carving party.  I had a semi-smart idea to lay down newspapers on the floor, but should have coupled that with a really smart idea and put down drop cloths under the newspaper.  On Sunday morning the kitchen floor was horrifying.  Big Daddy and I set at getting the pumpkin seeds and guts off of the floor, but our old steam mop wasn’t cutting it.

In all honesty, the old steam mop really hadn’t been cutting it downstairs for some time.  Our kitchen, laundry room, powder room and foyer is all tile.  The tile is textured.  Dirt gets caught in the crevices.  Big Daddy and I have scrubbed the floor on our hands and knees.  Because the steam mop couldn’t get in the crevices.

On that Sunday morning, Big Daddy decided that it was time for us to upgrade our floor cleaning system.  He hemmed and hawed and we hit the car to buy the Hoover Floormate.*

That afternoon, Big Daddy set to cleaning the floors and the floormate?  It works great.

My point, though, isn’t only about how well the floormate works.  It’s about how having the right tools can make your life (and house work process) so much easier.  I use clorox wipes.  I know they’re expensive.  I know that I could probably do the job as well with spray and a rag.  But I don’t like those things.  I like grabbing a couple of clorox wipes when I wipe up the bathroom or counters. I like that they’re contained.  I like the way they smell (green color is my favorite followed by yellow). I  like that I can leave a container of each under the sink in the bathroom.  That tool makes wipe ups easier. I can hand one to the big girls and let them wipe up too.

It’s time to look at your routines.  What things are being made harder by your process?  Are you back tracking a lot?  Are you working harder than you need to?

As a messy, I want to make sure I say the following.  There is no way to do housework that doesn’t involve you working.  Well, that’s not true.    You could hire a maid.  If you can’t afford to hire a full time maid, there’s no way that you can do housework without doing it.  I don’t like housework.  But since I like the house clean, don’t want to be on Hoarders and don’t want people scared when they come over, I’ve worked to stream line the process to make it as un labor intensive as possible.  Which, is really, the ultimate lazy girls’ way to clean house.

*In the spirit of full disclosure,  Big Daddy and I bought and paid for our own floormate.  Hoover didn’t provide one for us.  We got nothing free.  This is my own personal opinion of something we bought with our own money.  I think that covers the disclosure thing? I buy clorox wipes all by myself too.

Forty-Five Days.

I don’t want to freak anyone out.  Really. I promise.  But, well, if you’re not thinking about Christmas and you’re aspire to Martha-esque Christmas greatness, it’s time to start thinking, planning and doing.

Over the next seven weeks, I’m going to be suggesting tasks, cleaning and other projects to help you be ready for Christmas with the goal of ringing in the week of December 20th with nothing left to do but some cooking baking and reveling.  Sound fun?

Week 7 To-Do List

1) Take down your Halloween decorations.  As of publish time, mine were still half unpacked.  Big Daddy took down our air blown giant cat over the weekend and it’s drying in the basement.

2) Have you decorated for fall?  It’s not Christmas related, but why not put it out.  Thanksgiving is still weeks away and you have plenty of time to enjoy them.

3) Do you have a list of whom you’re buying gifts for?  Do you have budget ranges and gift ideas?  If not, this is the time to try and assemble those things.  There are some great deals to be had prior to Thanksgiving, but you have to know what you’re shopping for.

4)What Christmas decor are you missing?  We needed to buy new lights for our big tree and Big Daddy and I did that over the weekend.  We’ve started talking about and planning and measuring for our outdoor decor so we can purchase that as well.   Being prepared means you don’t end up frustrated when you overbuy something expensive or under buy something you really need.

5) Start deep cleaning the house.  I’m a messy girl too, but there is something wonderful about a house that is clean, decluttered and decorated for Christmas.  This week, I’ll be deep cleaning my bathroom and bedroom.  I’ll be purging old medications and toiletries.  I’ll be asking Big Daddy to put our bed together (Yes, we’ve lived here for six months and no our bed is still not assembled).  I’ll be purging drawers and closets.  I’ll be dusting, vacuuming baseboard, pulling down cobwebs and cleaning windows.  I might also splurge on a new pair of flannel sheets as our new house is quite a bit colder than our old one and we’re back to needing an extra layer.

Cleaning out actually serves two purposes:  first, decluttering is great.  Second, you might find things that need replaced that you can add to your Christmas list.

Why do the bedroom first?  If you’re like me, the main areas of the house probably need to be decluttered more, but the bedroom will keep if you pick up after yourself.  Also, don’t you deserve a clean bedroom?  You probably do.

My answer is a routine.  I have a set list of chores that I do every day.  Well, that I TRY to do every day.  Sometimes the kids are crabby or I just. don’t. want. to.  That creates another set of problems though.*

I have worked hard to keep this list simple.  It’s far too easy for me to over achieve and feel like I should be scrubbing the baseboards with a toothbrush or soaking the mini blinds in the bathtub.

My Daily Cleaning Routine looks a like this:

Morning

• Make the beds (mine and Big Daddy’s, Baby Bee’s and Littlebit’s)
• Wipe a bathroom (we have three. I wipe one a day on rotation and then everyone gets wiped up)
• Start laundry (we generate a load a day, so I try to wash, dry, fold and put away one load a day)
• Deal with dishes (if we’re running well, this means unloading the dinner dishes from the dish washer and loading up the breakfast dishes.  If we’re not, I cycle a load)
• Sweep the hard floors downstairs
• Vacuum the carpet downstairs

Evening

• Clean up dinner dishes and wipe up kitchen counters
• Wipe up the table after dinner
• take out kitchen garbage
• clean up the family room
• tidy up the playroom
• tidy up the little girl’s rooms
• put away clean laundry

I enlist the help of the other people who live with me to get through the evening chores.  It really only takes about 15 minutes to get everything done.  I have a weekly chore list as well, which I’ll talk about on a different day, but these two short lists are the minimum it takes to keep the house running and so we don’t show up on an episode of Hoarders.  I focus most of my attention on the things we need to keep the house running smoothly: clean clothes, a clean kitchen and a reasonably neat family room.  This sort of jives with Small Notebook’s cleaning hierarchy, so I must be something something semi-right because she’s sort of a guru.

*I’m no clean freak. I want to say that first.  I am not the sort of person who gets any amount of joy from the act of cleaning.  I do enjoy a clean, tidy and mostly organized home.  I am a happier person that way. But, I need to say this;  if you let housework languish it’s going to take more time, work and effort to clean up. I know this should seem like a no-brainer, but it’s taken me 11.5 years of keeping my own house to realize that letting anything linger is going to make it worse. The splattered spaghetti sauce on your stove?  Tomorrow it’s going to be like cement.  The laundry in the dryer?  Tomorrow it’s going to be wrinkled.  If it was damp, it might stink and require rewashing and then it takes MORE effort to get through your next load.  The pile of papers on your end table?  They’re going to pile up if you let them sit until tomorrow.  TRUST me.

I know what you just said.  But if you suffer from a particular kind of perfectionism chances are good your home looks EXACTLY like this.

Now, of course all the living room needs to be tidy is to have the toys picked up, the surfaces cleared and the sweeper run.  It really is that simple.  But people who are perfectionists like me don’t see that.

I need to clean up the living room.  I’ll just pick up the toys

Well, really the toy bins need organized.  There’s too much in them.

But if I’m going sort the toy bins, I should really move the couch and chair.  I bet there are wayward toys under there.

And if I’m going to move the couch and chair, I should vacuum and do the baseboards behind them.  Well, really I should vacuum all the baseboards.  It’s been a while.

But before I get the vacuum out, I really should vacuum off the furniture and dust.  And, I could get out the furniture polish.

And the windows are looking kind of dingy.  I should grab the windex.  It will only take a second, but I should dust the blinds first.

But I don’t have TIME to dust the blinds and polish the furniture!

It’s like giving a pig a pancake or a mouse a cookie.  It just goes on and on and on until you’ve made your work list so long that it’s become impossible to just pick up your living room.  You don’t have TIME to be perfect, so why bother?

This post at Small Notebook really spoke to me because that, my friends, is me.  My raging perfectionism and desire for the PERFECT home (holiday, birthday party, dinner, laundry) keeps me from having the kind of home that might not be perfect but would make me happy.  I fret and worry about how long it will take me to do all the things that need to be done without realizing that, it probably only takes fifteen minutes to pick up the toys, clear the surface and run the vacuum cleaner and usually always can find fifteen minutes.

I’ve been working hard on stream lining the process.  On identifying only the things that are the most important.

Every Day I(try to):

• pick up all the toys in the family room
• clear all the surfaces
• vacuum the living room and dining room
• make sure the dining room table is clean
• clear and clean the kitchen counters
• wash the dishes
• make the beds
• wipe up a bathroom (we have three, so I rotate.  I wipe up one per day)
• sweep the hard floors downstairs
• cycle at least one load of laundry

If I have time and motivation, I move to my weekly cleaning list which is more detailed and involves tasks like sheet changing, toilet scrubbing and mopping.  Most weeks, I get through all of my weekly list, though I’ve given up doing it on Monday and in an hour.  Fly Lady must live in a little house with no kids.  That’s all I can figure.

I also utilize a timer.  I set it for 15 minutes (which is about the amount of time two small kids can be counted on to mostly be busy with something) and work to get as much as I can off of my list in that amount of time.  Honestly, it takes me about 90 minutes a day to clean the house.  That includes putting away laundry, post dinner clean up, daily chores and working in things off of my weekly chore list that I want to get done.

It’s hard to want so badly to be perfect, but it really benefits no one.  And by giving up just a little bit you and your home will be a lot happier.

This is what the home of a reforming perfectionist looks like.

This is my steamer. See?  It’s not pretty.  It’s kind of scuffed up, but that’s because it’s useful.  I use it.  For what?  What don’t I use it for.

Ugly, but good.

1) Cleaning glass.  Super easy.  Hose that glass down with steam and use the squeegee.   Your glass will be sparkling clean in minutes AND no chemicals.

2) All natural soap leave….um…chunks in your shower?  Steam if off.

3) Potty training children leave pee places you don’t want it?  Steam it off! (but, it stinks.  Just thought I should point that out)

4) Gunk around the shoe molding on your baseboards?  You get what I’m saying?

5) Dirty nasty sliding door track?  You guessed it.

It really REALLY does work.  It’s not a gimmick AND best of all?  It’s chemical free and does the job.  I’m all for spending money on products that make your housework easier and this is a biggie.  It really does work for me.

What one just like it?  You can find it at amazon.com (I don’t have to tell you that I don’t make any money from that link, right?)  Want to see what’s working for other people?  Check out WFMW at We are THAT family

Typically, I stay on top of things.  I do my chore list every day and while I grouse about it, it works out all right, but the weekends always seem to get a little crazy and come Monday I’m wondering WTH we did the the joint!!  Things are all over the place.  Like a bomb went off and it was loaded with toys and dishes and clothes and trash.

If you’re like me, that probably makes you feel not only overwhelmed but a little bit crazy too.  I would stare at the pile of work needing to be done and had no idea where to start, so I decided to use my OCD to my advantage.  I pick up the closet ten things.  ANY ten things and put them away.  I return to the scene of the crime and pick up another ten things  and within no time the chaos is beginning to make sense.  It really does work on the most frighteningly messy rooms.  And, there’s nothing to be overwhelmed about.  Just pick up ten.  Put them away.  Return and pick up another ten.  It works for me.  See?

Post-Weekend Dining Room Disaster

After 10 things...

After two more rounds of 10 things

Mischief Managed.

Want to check out more short-cuts and tips from real people who actually do them?  Check out Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family

Get Rid of the Clutter

Admitedly, our living room doesn’t have a lot of clutter at this point.  We did a huge purge at the beginning of the year when we thought we were putting the house on the market.  We removed nearly every extraneous thing from the living room except for Littlebit’s trampoline.  We have since added Baby Bee’s swing and bouncy seat, but our clutter level is pretty low.  If yours isn’t, it’s time to tackle it.    I know it’s hard to consider. I freaked out while we were doing ours, but it really makes such a huge difference not only in how the room looks, but the time it takes to clean it up.  Less stuff means less for people to drag out and less for YOU to put away.  I like to declutter first off.  Really.    What’s in our living room?  Well, the couch, chair and ottoman (the ottoman is a storage ottoman from Ikea and it holds our extra couch covers), two end tables, two lamps, our entertainment  armoire and the bookcase from the hallway.  Plus the trampoline, the swing and the bouncer.  That’s it. No more.  If it can be neatly stored in what we have in the room, it can’t stay here.  That means uncluttered table tops and shelves too.  The eye likes white space/empty spaces.

Get into the details

Chances are good your family area gets cleaned a lot because it has to be, but if you’re like me you probably don’t do a detailed cleaning very often.  I know I don’t even bother to dust and I’ve already admitted to a cobweb problem (we might name our spiders.  No big deal), but since I’m trying to get the place tip-top clean, that means doing it all.  Again, start at the top and work towards the bottom. I start with having Big Daddy pull down the cobwebs and dust the ceiling fan (we have high, vaulted ceilings and there’s just no reasonable way for me to do that stuff).

Wash your window treatments if you can, or dust them/wipe them off if you can’t.  Make sure to dust/wipe off any wall decor.   Clean your windows and sills too, even if you know you’re going to have dirty little fingerprints on them in two minutes.

Wipe off switches and outlet covers and wash off your baseboards.  I use the handy, dandy pinesol and just do a quick wipe.  I also get my crevice tool out and vacuum along the baseboards as well.  And I move the funriture too.

Objects found the last time I moved the couch:

• a bowl
• a plastic cup
• one pig, one camel, and a little table with an umbrella
• the back to a long lost remove
• the battery cover for the wii fit
• a rosary (what?)
• a book
• various trash

Textiles

Mine get stinky.  I have a dog.  And Big Daddy.  We have the Ektorp sofa from Ikea.  I love this furniture.  It’s basically a big slip cover, but better and it’s all washable.  Mine is white.  Sounds crazy, but that means you can bleach the crap out of it. Prior to this, we had a traditional sofa and I would clean them as far as I could, including washing the cushion covers.  I make sure to wash my throws and pillow covers too.  Textiles trap odors, so wash them if you can.

If you can’t wash them, make sure to vacuum them off as far as you can and dig down into the cushions as well to remove things that don’t belong

Things Removed from the Recliner Before it Went out to the Curb

• A pair of underwear
• a remote control
• a hairbrush
• 57 cents
• hair ties
• a book
• three pens

And…the carpets.  Clean those too.  For $25 you can rent a rug doctor if you don’t own a carpet cleaner (well $25 plus cleaning solution).  If you have kids and pets, shampooing the carpets every now and then isn’t a bad idea.  Accidents happen and knowing your carpet was at least really clean at some point isn’t a bad thing and you might feel better about laying your baby on it.

It might seem like a lot to do, but again, broken into small bits it really doesn’t take long and the results are worth it.

Up next:  The Dining Room

Previously:

The Powder Room

The Foyer

Declutter It

I have a charming habit of stacking things on the dining room chairs that we dont’ use. I know. Super cute, right?   Well, I made it a point to get the crap off of the chairs.  All that should be on the table when we’re not eating, at least at our house, is our peg people family and a candle.  Fresh flowers if I get that far.  I’m willing to allow Big Daddy’s work lap top to sit on one of the unused chairs WITH the cord wound up neatly (because I can’t tell you how many time a week we trip over it if it’s not wound up.  It’s frequent).

Can you see your dining room table?  If you don’t eat at your table (we eat at ours every night) you might be using it to store stuff like mail.  Don’t.  Clear it off, move the stuff to the places it belongs and keep your table clean.   If you have a buffet, side board or china cabinet, clean that out and clear it off.  Don’t keep things you won’t use or won’t ever need.  I admit to being a Fly Lady drop out (like a million times over) but one thing she said that always stuck with me refers to not doing things that don’t bless your family.  Well, I don’t keep things that don’t bless our family.  Consider doing the same.  I hae a set of heirloom china that we use a few times a year.  I’m not talking about that stuff.  I’m talking about the ugly soup tureen you got for your wedding from Aunt Peggy that you’ll never use, you probably hate, she’s forgotten about and is taking up valuable space from something that’s probably prettier.

Clean It

Top to bottom.  Clean your light fixture and pull down your cobwebs (you have some too, don’t you?  I can’t be the only one!).  Dust the top of any large/high furniture.  IF you can’t, enlist someone taller.  Clean your window treatments as well.  If you can wash them, do it.  Otherwise, dust or spot clean.

Clean your windows, wipe off your switch plates and outlet covers (nasty, dirty things).  Wipe off your baseboards and if you have carpet get out your vacuum crevice tool and vacuum along your baseboards.

One thing I forgot to mention in the living room and that I will mention here is making sure you clean your registers too.  Wipe off the registers themselves and vacuum out the inside.  Our dining room vent had about three pounds of cat food in it.  Not sure who to blame for that as there are a few likely candidates for the job.

If you have carpet, consider shampooing it yourself or professionally.  If you have hard floors, I recommend getting down on your hands and knees and giving it a REALLY good once over.

Honor Your Family Table

I love our table.  Not becuase it pleases me astethiclaly (it does) but becuase it’s where our family traditions happen.  It’s where we eat breakfast and where we chat over dinner. It’s where we carve pumpkins and make gingerbread houses.  It’s where my kids color and create works of art and where the homework is done.  It needs to be honored for the thing that it is.

And that involves the oil soap.  I clean the table from top to bottom.  I scrub the crumbs out of the back of the chair where the rungs meet the seat.  I scrape off and wipe up every square inch of hte table, removing mystery dinner, paint, crayons and whatever else happens to collect there (enough hair to make another cat).  Taking care to clean and polish you table will not only keep it looking pretty, but keep it looking like the family treasure it is longer.

Don’t forget to make a list of any items needing repair beyond your skill or current budget.  We had a burnt out lightbulb and I made notes about a few things I thought I needed to complete the room.

The effort was well worth it.

Up Next: Don’t get scared now, it’s the kitchen!

Perviously:

The Living Room

The Powder Room

The Foyer

Get the Crap Out

That means everything that doesn’t belong. I have yet to see a truly large powder room, but even if yours is, getting rid of clutter applies. We even had a kitty condo (small, but still) taking up precious floor space. I mean, it did store magazines and extra rolls of toilet paper, but a small basket would have done that job just fine anyhow. Removing every extraneous thing from the room should be your first step.

And, don’t forget to purge your medicine cabinet if you have too. Get rid of and replace out dated medicine and don’t forget that make up has expiration dates too.

Also, use this time to get rid of things you don’t NEED. Ugly nail polish? A q-tip box with one q-tip in it? Nebulizer apparatus missing pieces? While your medicine cabinet is empty, wipe off all the shelves.

Clean the Crap Up

Right now you’re probably wondering if I’m going to slip references to poop and crap in as frequently as I can. The answer is yes.

Do you know how far your toilet sprays when you flush it? The answer is far. So, you probably need to scrub. I start from top and move to the bottom

Pull down any cobwebs collecting in corners and along the ceilings. I have a lot of spiders, so this is a must do. Otherwise, we look like the Aadams family lives here. If you have any décor on the walls, give them a good cleaning off too. Clean the glass or dust.

Wipe your glass. If you have windows, clean those. Make sure to get your mirrors and don’t forget to wipe along the top and edges where dust (and probably toilet spray) collects.

Wipe your fixtures. Make sure to wipe off your towel bars and toilet paper holders. At the very least, your toilet paper holder is covered with toilet paper lint/dust. At worst? Toilet spray(!!)!

Give your sink a deep cleaning. Use a toothbrush to dig the grime out from around the spigot. It collects there. I have a pedistal sink, so I’ll be sure to spray and wipe the entire thing including a good cleaning around the base where things end up collecting. I have a hollow area behind my sink as well that gets a good cleaning though, even though I’m afraid that Aragog is hiding back there.

Don’t forget to wipe off your door, doorknobs, switch plates and outlet covers.

If you have a bathroom trash can (and i’m sure you do) clean that sucker out too. Empty it, fill it with hot water and dump in some pine-sol. Let it sit and then dump it out. Wipe off the outside. If it’s totally nasty, get new one. I buy inexpensive plastic trash cans so if something horrible happens in it I can throw it away without compunction. I learned this when I was 21. It’s served me well. When in doubt? But a new one! It’s cheap!

And lastly, scrub your toilet. Use a good toilet bowl cleaner (I actually like Sno-bowl, but you probably have your favorite too) and make sure to scrub well under the rim. Use that toothbrush to scrub around the bolts OR if you have a steamer this is a great place to use it as the steam forces the gunk out from around bolts and other hard to reach areas. It’s also important to clean around the bottom of your toilet. Disgusting, but important. I use the steamer and some paper towels. It gets it totally clean even if I do want to boil my hands to get the germs off. I usually use some spray cleaner to spray and clean up anything the paper towels missed.

And then I take a bath in purex.

Clean Your Linens

And be sure to wash your rug. Change out linens and if you need new ones, add that to your running list.

I have a fabric roman shade, so I give this a quick cleaning too. I dust it off and then use a damp cloth to do some clean up.

Back on your knees

Get used to it. You’ll be spending a lot of time here. Again, washing the floors on your hands and knees just does a good job. You can wipe up your baseboards and vents as well.

Up Next: The Living Room

First up: The Foyer

However, the start of the school year feels more like New Year than Janurary 1st and I decided that this year, I’m going to fall clean the crap out of this place.

I’m a messy.  Seriously.  House cleaning just isn’t what I do and it’s not what I like.  I do it because I don’t want anyone to take my kids away because the house is filthy.  Otherwise, I’d live in semi-squallor.  There’s a post here waiting to be written about how my inability to quickly clean is due to a case of raging perfectionism.  It’s like if you give a pig a pancake (if you clean up the toys, you’ll notice that the toy bin needs to be purged and organized.  While you’re doing that, you’ll find a winter hat and realize you need to have the kids try on the selection of winter clothes to make sure you’re not cramping the winter clothes bin with unneeded things.  While you’re doing that, you’ll notice that the books in the bookcase are messy and need to be reodered.  You’ll start straightening them when you remember a pile of wayward books on the end table.  When you get there, you’ll notice that the end table needs to be dusted.  You get the picture, right?)

But this is about using my own “special” kind of perfectionism to fall clean and I’m starting with the foyer.  Why?  Well, for starters it’s the first room you walk into and if my house is anything like YOUR house, my foyer becomes a catch all for the things we carry into the house with us.  We can pile a bookcase up feet high.  And don’t get me started on the coat closet.

So,  here’s my list of how to fall clean your foyer.

Make like Eminem and clean out your closet

We have a teensy tiny coat closet. It matches the rest of our teensy tiny house.  It’s imperative that we keep it as neat and tidy as possible.  But, you know how kids are.  They don’t put things away, hang up the coats all half assed, etc, etc.  We have a shoe organizer, but the shoes don’t always make their way in.

Stuff also ends up in our closet that doesn’t belong. I removed an atlas, two keyboards and a Communion dress.

This is also a good time to get your winter coats that need to be dry cleaned from last season into the cleaners. Plenty of time to have them cleaned and returned by cold weather.

I remove everything from the closet and sweep it out.  I also re-hang all the coats/snowpants/snow suits and make sure I button the collars to keep them on their hangers.  I nestle the matched shoes into their cubbies and only return things to the shelf that it makes sense to return there; our hip hammock, the dog’s leashes and extra collars, etc.

If it doesn’t fit you must….toss it.

Or if it’s in bad shape and you won’t wear it or just flat out don’t need it, move it along.  I make sure to clean out my hat and glove bin.  I removed a few too small hats (donate), two unmatched gloves (tossed)  I took out a couple of outgrown coats that will be packed away until Baby Bee is big enough to wear them.

Return things to their home

Meaning, if it doesn’t belong in your foyer, it needs to get out of there.  My foyer is pretty tiny, my storage space is very limited.  I can’t really have extraneous things hanging out in there.  We LOVE to dump things in our foyer, particularly on the book case.

I know you’re thinking holy shit!  What a mess.  That was everything purged from the closet and book case that didn’t belong.

Sort and Purge and clean any furniture

We do keep things in the foyer.  On the bookcase.  I blogged about it.  It’s a great piece and fits our needs.  I removed everything, wiped off every shelf and sorted and purged the books.  A few that I could donate, a few in very, very poor repair that were taking up space and couldn’t be repaired enough to be useful again.  My small storage vase for cords and keys was holding a few extra things as well, so I removed them to a more fitting place.

If it doesn’t move, clean it.

Yeah, clean it all.  Wipe down the doors.  They’re probably filthy unless you wipe them off regularly.  Wipe off your doorknobs, switch plates and outlet covers too.  Dust and dirt accumulates on them.  If you have art on the wall, pull it off and wipe it down too, dust frames and remove cob webs.

Clean off your threshold too.  Ours was pretty dirty and your probably is as well unless you regularly clean it.  Windex the glass and use a toothbrush if you need to do clean off any grime in small places.  We have textured molding on our sidelights and the dirt cakes in there.  An old, spare toothbrush and a little bit of pine-sol and things are squeaky clean.

Make sure to wash any rugs or runners as well.  They’re bound to be dirty even if you do wash them frequently.  Consider wiping off your lighting fixtures,too.  You could even turn estimating the amount of accumulated bugs into a fun family activity. ;)  We have a cold air intake and a register vent in our foyer too and a good cleaning is necessary for them as well.  You can even use your vaccum or a shop-vac to vacuum out any dust/dirt/hair/change/etc that has accumulated inside your vent as well.  We always have a small assortment of fun goodies lurking down there.

Get on your knees

This is the worst part.  I don’t like it, but it’s necessary.  It’s time to scrub the foyer floor.  On your hands and knees.  I use a bucket with pine-sol and a dish rag.  I get along the baseboards and use my finger (or you could use a tooth brush) to make sure to dig out any built up or caked on dirt or hair.  Wipe down the baseboards at this time too.  Make sure to get along room thresholds and along stairs if you have any.

Make a repair/replace list

This might not be the time to do any major repairs, but if you notice things that need to be addressed, this is the time to make a list.  I have a couple of burned out lightbulbs that we’ll replace when we have the ladder out to clean the light fixtures.  We also need to either paint or replace our front door and that goes onto the list too for consideration (you never know when something you can’t pass up will show up on craigslist).

As a note to messies, unless you’re foyer is huge it really won’t take much time to do this.  Split out over the course of a few days or even a week means it can be done in just a few minutes a day.  Here’s my squeaky clean foyer.  You can still see that the floor is still wet from the hands and knees scrubbing.

Up next?  The Powder Room