Homemaking | Weekly Cleaning Schedule

In case you missed my first few CLEANING posts… here they are:

Cleaning Expectations
Preparing your home
Cleaning Supplies
Daily Tidying Schedule

Today, I’m sharing what I do on a weekly basis to clean all of the odds and ends in our home.  I have a couple of days that I do “extras” on top of my DAILY TIDYING that help keep our home feeling squeaky clean.

WEEKLY CLEANING SCHEDULE: 

Sunday:  I don’t like to make my Sundays busy with work, so I usually just tidy from the weekend and call it good.

Monday:  I wake up to a tidy home on Mondays, but there is usually some deeper cleaning that needs to be done after a weekend of fun.  The kids and I do a quick sweep the floors (vacuum rugs on main level and Liam dust busts around the perimeter of the main level), do a couple loads of laundry, and pick up bits of paper/trash in the kids’ rooms (for some reason, their rooms always seem to be littered with bits of trash/paper that requires intentional picking up… we do this on Monday and again on Friday).

Tuesday-Thursday:  I run the laundry through as needed, but nothing major is done on these days.  I just stick to my daily tidying and that’s it.  These days are all about maintenance. 🙂

Friday:  This is our biggest cleaning day of the week.  And even though the bulk of our regular cleaning happens this day, it goes rather quickly because the house has been tidied and tended to in small bits every single day.  I don’t usually wake up on Fridays feeling overwhelmed with it because it doesn’t take too long, in all reality.

After I take my morning shower, the kids and I gather ALL of our towels (bathroom and kitchen), washrags, and bath mats and take them to the laundry room.  I like doing this because it keeps those things out of my way as I clean the bathrooms. I also strip the beds and wash bedding on this day, usually, too.  While all of the laundry is going, I tend to the dusting of the home and the cleaning of the bathrooms.

I start with:

1. My bedroom/bathroom
2. Dust the Living room, Dining room, and clean the 1/2 bath off of the kitchen
3. Then I finish up with dusting the kids’ bedrooms and bathroom.
4. I don’t typically have to do anything to the kitchen because it gets wiped down at the end of every day, but if it is dirty, I clean that area, too.

Here is my bathroom cleaning routine:  Spray my Thieves cleaner over all of the surfaces- counter top, shower/bath, toilet, and any area that needs extra cleaning (think behind the toilet).  I dust my bedroom with my clean cloth while the Thieves spray soaks in the bathroom.  Like I said in my CLEANING SUPPLY post, I use one cloth for each target area in my home.  I dust my bedroom first so that I can use the same cloth in my bathroom.  The idea is to start with the least germy area first and work my way to the most germy area last… and then toss the rag in the wash basket.

Target Area One – Master Bed and Bath:  After my bedroom is dusted (I dust my bedside lights, the tops of all of our furniture, and the bed’s headboard and footboard), I go and clean my bathroom counter and mirror.  I then attack the shower, making my way to the toilet last.  When all of that is done, I spray my floor (start in the corner farthest from the door and work your way to the door so you don’t step on the clean floor as it is drying) and wipe it down, working my way out of my clean bathroom.

Target Area Two – Living room/Dining room/ 1/2 bath:  This is pretty much the same.  I dust the surfaces in the living room and dining room, making sure to pick items up off of the surfaces so I can clean under them.  Then, I use the same cloth to clean the half bath and then toss it in the wash basket.

Target Area Three – Kids’ bed and bath: As I walk up the stairs, I wipe the spindles on the staircase with a third cleaning cloth.  I spray the kids’ bathroom- sinks, tub, toilet and area around the toilet.  I close the bathroom door (so my kids don’t use the bathroom until I’m done cleaning) and dust the three upstairs rooms (dressers, night stands, bed frames, and the back of their doors where dust tends to collect).  Like I have said before, we don’t keep a bunch of trinkets and stuff out on our surfaces, so dusting is suuuuuch a quick job.  I, literally, spray and wipe.  My kids don’t clutter their rooms and we don’t have stuff sitting out to collect dust.

Once the dusting is finished, I hit the bathroom which is easy to clean because the Thieves has done its work and loosened all of the gunk.

LASTLY…. the floors.  I vacuum the floors after all of the surfaces are dusted (Except the bathrooms.  I do wipe those floors down as I exit the bathroom after it’s cleaned.) so that I can sweep up anything that I dusted onto the floor.  Once the entire home has been cleaned, I get my vacuum and sweep the rugs, steps going upstairs, and the upstairs carpet.  I sweep the wood floors with my microfiber mop daily, so my wood floors rarely need vacuumed with the vacuum during my Friday cleaning.  I only mop my floors 2 times/month.  We don’t wear shoes in our home and food is kept in the kitchen, so the kitchen is the only area that needs an occasional mopping in between.  No shoes helps keep our floors clean SO much.  Summer requires a bit more attention to the floors since we get dirty feet from flip flops and we go in and out more often, but during the fall-spring, the floors don’t require that much mopping.

Saturday: We are usually having fun as a family on Saturday, so I just maintain a tidy home and that’s it.  

I hope that was helpful and gave you a glimpse into how I maintain a clean home.  I know the Friday schedule seems daunting, but I promise, it’s not.  I spend an hour to an hour and a half cleaning on Friday.  The kids will help me from time to time and then it goes even quicker.  I get started right after breakfast and knock it out prior to school starting.