Theming Your Cleaning Can Help Yearlong
Spring cleaning will keep your home in better shape, allow you to entertain, retain a higher resale value, and your quality of life and health generally improve.
It's a vital chore. It just doesn't have to be a nightmare marathon.
That's where themes come in.
Themed Spring Cleaning
The idea is simple: instead of blindly moving out, cleaning and moving items back, create a purpose to spring cleaning that everyone in the house can get behind.
Some examples I've put into use were excess reduction, electronic clean up, linen love, find-donate-replace clothing, etc.
Let's look at how the idea works:
1. Define Your Theme (example: De-clutter & Organize) - The theme you choose is up to you. What you want to do is narrow it down so that while cleaning, a specific aspect of home life is addressed in a way that will carry through the year. So, using the example I am, I am clearly defining that what will be focused on during the month is specifically de-cluttering and organizing.
2. Define Your Needs (example: a variety of boxes and storage containers) - Based on your house and theme, you will have unique needs specific to your home. Using my example of de-cluttering, I need to focus on boxes, baskets and bags that match our home décor but give much needed extra space. You'll always want to think about actual design during this phase so that it can enhance - or even begin creating - a real look to your home that not only makes 'cleaning up' easier but looks great hanging around.
3. Define Your Parameters - Choose a day that major clean-up will be done on, allowing other household members to do some early work if they don't want a full day of cleaning. Be very clear about what your goals are. If you want every single piece of electronics in your home clean, state it. Write everything down and be as clear as possible so no one - even you - can bend the 'rules'.
4. Get It Done - On cleaning day, you can still go from ceiling-to-floor if you choose, but you don't have to. My process is to go through each room with my theme in mind. Hopefully everyone in the house has rallied behind me and is ready: a box of donations, bags of trash, and boxes to be stored. I scan each room to make sure the theme has been met to my eyes and move to the next. From there, I've eliminated an entire set of things to clean and can quickly do the scrub-down and disinfect.
5. Continuing On - The first Themed Spring Clean was so much less stressful that my family actually enjoyed themselves and were pleasantly surprised at things found that had been ''lost." We've continued this beyond Spring Cleaning, making each month a theme that keeps our home Spring Clean fresh and improving!
(Want proof? Look at and/or watch the remodeling as it goes ... Luxe Domestique is on its way but until then we have a haphazard home with spots of brilliance.)
It's a vital chore. It just doesn't have to be a nightmare marathon.
That's where themes come in.
Themed Spring Cleaning
The idea is simple: instead of blindly moving out, cleaning and moving items back, create a purpose to spring cleaning that everyone in the house can get behind.
Some examples I've put into use were excess reduction, electronic clean up, linen love, find-donate-replace clothing, etc.
Let's look at how the idea works:
1. Define Your Theme (example: De-clutter & Organize) - The theme you choose is up to you. What you want to do is narrow it down so that while cleaning, a specific aspect of home life is addressed in a way that will carry through the year. So, using the example I am, I am clearly defining that what will be focused on during the month is specifically de-cluttering and organizing.
2. Define Your Needs (example: a variety of boxes and storage containers) - Based on your house and theme, you will have unique needs specific to your home. Using my example of de-cluttering, I need to focus on boxes, baskets and bags that match our home décor but give much needed extra space. You'll always want to think about actual design during this phase so that it can enhance - or even begin creating - a real look to your home that not only makes 'cleaning up' easier but looks great hanging around.
3. Define Your Parameters - Choose a day that major clean-up will be done on, allowing other household members to do some early work if they don't want a full day of cleaning. Be very clear about what your goals are. If you want every single piece of electronics in your home clean, state it. Write everything down and be as clear as possible so no one - even you - can bend the 'rules'.
4. Get It Done - On cleaning day, you can still go from ceiling-to-floor if you choose, but you don't have to. My process is to go through each room with my theme in mind. Hopefully everyone in the house has rallied behind me and is ready: a box of donations, bags of trash, and boxes to be stored. I scan each room to make sure the theme has been met to my eyes and move to the next. From there, I've eliminated an entire set of things to clean and can quickly do the scrub-down and disinfect.
5. Continuing On - The first Themed Spring Clean was so much less stressful that my family actually enjoyed themselves and were pleasantly surprised at things found that had been ''lost." We've continued this beyond Spring Cleaning, making each month a theme that keeps our home Spring Clean fresh and improving!
(Want proof? Look at and/or watch the remodeling as it goes ... Luxe Domestique is on its way but until then we have a haphazard home with spots of brilliance.)
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