One Hour Clean Sweep: Master Bedroom

My master bedroom is currently serving as our office and temporary storage for some baby items. We are finishing our unfinished basement and had to move everything out. Once the basement is done, the upstairs guest bedroom/office will be going downstairs and baby #2 will be moving into the upstairs guest bedroom/office. We have been living like this since March and I am ready to put my house back together.

Anyway, in 15 minutes I...

1) Made the bed. This always makes the most difference in a bedroom.

2) Picked up laundry off the floor and put it in the hamper. Removed all other clutter from the floor. I put away items that belonged elsewhere and threw away/recycled trash.

2) Cleared off and put away the clutter from the tops of the two dressers, nightstand, and bench at the end of the bed.

For more about the One Hour Clean Sweep follow these links:

Introduction

Kitchen

Living Room

One Hour Clean Sweep: The Living Room

In 15 Minutes I...

1) Put all the toys away.

2) Cleared all the flat surfaces: top of entertainment center, tops of end tables

3) Re-tucked slip covers

4) Sorted through our newspaper basket. I pulled out coupons to clip and took everything else to the recycling bin in the garage.

In main living areas it's helpful to take an empty laundry basket to collect items that don't belong. Then you can make one quick trip at the end of your time to put those items in their proper place. You can also take a small garbage bag to collect trash. Most of the trash that I find is paper so I just throw that in the laundry basket and take it to the recycling bin.

The One Hour Clean Sweep

To find out more about the One Hour Clean Sweep go here . To find out about the one hour clean sweep in the kitchen click here. For information on living rooms, go here. Updates will be posted the rest of this week.

One Hour Clean Sweep: The Kitchen

In 15 Minutes I...

1) Took care of the dishes. This meant unloading and reloading the dishwasher. I leave anything that needs to be washed by hand until the very end and do that only if I have time. This is usually minimal, pots and pans and items that are too large or fragile for the dishwasher. I didn't get to a cutting board and an empty storage tub that needed to be washed out.

2) Cleaned off all the flat surfaces: tabletop, counters, and top of the stove. I didn't get the vaporizer put away because it has to go downstairs and I ran out of time.

3) Swept the floor.

One Hour Clean Sweep, Introduction

Over the next few days, I'm doing a series on the One Hour Clean Sweep. This is a technique I use when my house in in complete disarray and I am lacking the motivation to jump in and set it straight. The One Hour Clean Sweep is adapted from Fly Lady's Crisis Cleaning.

The One Hour Clean Sweep

1) Choose four rooms that need the most attention. I often break this down into kitchen, living room, master bedroom, kids bedrooms. Sometimes I lump the bedrooms together and add the bathroom as the fourth room.

2) Set a timer for fifteen minutes and start in the worst room. This is usually my kitchen.

3) Do as much as you can in that room in fifteen minutes. Do the job that will make the most difference first (more to come on this is future posts).

4) When the timer goes off, go on to the next room. For me that's my living room. Do as much as you can in fifteen minutes. Do the job that will make the most difference first. Keep going until you've spent fifteen minutes in each of the four rooms.

5) At the end of one hour, you'll have spent fifteen minutes in four different rooms and your house will look put back together.

Sometimes I need an extra fifteen minutes at the end to finish my kitchen.

The trick to making this work for you is to stay focused and stay in that one room. Do as much as you can in fifteen minutes.

Summer To Do List

Wash woodwork
Murphy oil cabinets
Wash out and organize cabinets
Organize closets
Organize filed pictures into albums
Wash slipcovers
Wash comforters and quilts
Wash windows

Making My Home a Haven Challenge

I am a first time participant in Biblical Womanhood's Making Your Home a Haven Challenge. This challenge was just what I needed to dive into my week.

I try to do a thirty minute quick clean every morning. I didn't get that done Saturday or Sunday so I had to spend a little more time today.

Dining area before. Our garage connects directly to the kitchen so the table always becomes a dumping ground. I spent five minutes organizing and putting items in their proper home.

Kitchen before. I needed to empty the dishwasher so I could reload. I spent twenty minutes in here because I swept the floor and did a quick mop with a Swiffer wet. I also wanted to find a new way to store my Shark vacuum so it wasn't so noticeable.

The living room before. Stuff everywhere. I spent five minutes putting things away and re-tucking the slip covers.

The clean kitchen. I am not a huge fan of my floor, so no picture of that.

The clean dining area.

The clean living room.

Items checked off my to do list:

1) Go to the post office. It's two blocks from my house so I walked.

2) Schedule doctor's appointment

3) Change sheets

4) Do four hours of work. I work from home in the summer.

5) Organize computer desktop

6) Send my friend a card