How to Keep your House Clean all Year Long

If you know me, you know that for the most part my house is usually pretty clean. Oh we make messes all day long, I homeschool, but we all have been well trained to clean up the mess we make.  Do I spend all day cleaning my house?  No!  Do I have my kids do chores all day?  Of Course….NOT! Do I have to remind my kids to clean up?  Yes, they are just like any normal kid, but they do listen to me when I ask them to. {That skill took time for them to learn}  So how do we keep the house clean? We spend anywhere between 30-45 minutes every morning doing our ONE chore each and our dish rack. You can see our job chart here. My kids start doing chores when they are 4.  Children under 4 help the older kids.  After the chores are done we make sure that we clean up after ourselves during the day.  We do our outside work on weekends when dad is home.  And that’s it!

I was born into a house that was pretty much always clean.  I also don’t ever remember my mom cleaning all day long.  Now folding laundry….that’s another story!  We did our chores and cleaned up after ourselves.  We had a place for everything and put everything back in it’s place.  I was taught well, and am grateful for that. Now, I am not trying to brag by telling you this, I promise, I am going somewhere with this.  For you that didn’t grow up like me…it’s okay. Baby steps, right?  You can totally learn how to do this.  Here are 10 steps I have come up with to have a clean house all year long.

1 – Go though each room in your house and De-junk and De-clutter everything.  It’s OK to get rid of stuff.  Throw it away, store it, or donate it.  It might be hard at first, but it feels so good! If you haven’t used it in forever, if your kids don’t ever play with it, GET RID OF IT!
2 – Only store things that you really need.  Especially don’t save random papers you don’t need.  Also, have a place designated for everything.
3 – Once you’re house is clean….Keep it clean.
4 – Set up a daily chore chart.  Be consistent in doing it every day.
5 – If you mess it up, clean it up.  It is way faster to put the peanut butter, bread and knife away then it is to let it pile up on the counter and then have to put a whole bunch of things away later.
6 – Teach your kids to clean up after themselves.  It might take a little reminding, but we tell them it will go away if they don’t clean it up.  That usually does the trick, especially since something really went away once that they wouldn’t clean up!
7 –  Do a quick clean up at night before you go to bed.  Start the Dishwasher, clean up random stuff, and pick up your husbands shoes 🙂 It makes mornings so much nicer to wake up to a clean house.
8 –  Deep clean or organize an area once a week!  By doing this you won’t feel overwhelmed.
9 –  Have a place for everything and put everything back in it’s place.  
10- Expect your family to be on board with you.  Don’t let them throw stuff on the floor.

You are not a slave.  I am a big advocate of teaching my children to work and to do the job right.  Make it fun, work along side them.  That doesn’t mean do their chore for them or with them, but work while they are working, as a family to get the whole house clean.  It took about 3 months of consistent “what are you supposed to be doing right now” , “please go get your jobs done”, and “did you get it done yet?”, but it paid off because, for the last 3 year, they know what they are supposed to do every morning.

Because I do this I don’t feel overwhelmed when spring comes along and everyone is talking about Spring Cleaning.  I actually love when spring comes around, and our main school year is coming to a close (I school a little over the summer). Like I said my house is clean, so I don’t have a ton of spring cleaning to do, but I do have places that need to be organized again.  I finally get to go though paperwork from school, and deep clean the school closet, which I did today!

Come back Monday for another fun (you can use that word when your talking cleaning right?) post about keeping a clean kitchen!

Have an awesome weekend, and hopefully you will find some time to organize and clean up an area that is driving you crazy!!  Good Luck!

Check out these other great post by the 11 bloggers that are participating in this Spring De-Junk Giveaway and Challenge!  They all have such great ideas!