Wednesday, December 06, 2017

How I Keep On Top of the Household Chores ♥

 *This is a collaborative post.

In recent years - mainly since I've become a mother, I've learnt that keeping a house in good, clean order can be a full-time job. There's always something to be done, always somewhere to clean or tidy up and sometimes it can feel like a mammoth task (I've yet to discover a love of cleaning the bathroom!). Lately though, I've been putting into practice, things that have made the effort of keeping a house clean and tidy with two young kids in tow a little bit easier.

Laundry
The laundry is one thing that always needs doing in our house. I don't know who's wearing and dirtying all these clothes but the laundry basket always seems to be full! Investing in a good, portable laundry basket has been an essential part of being able to keep up with the laundry for us. Our washing machine is now based in a shed out in the garden, so I needed something which I could carry down there - we keep our laundry basket on the upstairs landing.

There are so many laundry basket or bag options nowadays and a laundry basket no longer has to be an unsightly thing covered with dirty clothes, there are actually quite stylish ones on the market these days - Brabantia has a lovely range of very stylish laundry baskets, perfect for keeping everything out of sight.

I no longer let the clothes build up either. Once there's enough clothes for a full wash load they get washed. One of my major bug bears is having baskets of clean clothes hanging around waiting to be put away, so a new rule in our house is that once a basket of clean clothes is there to be put away, it has to be put away on the same day. Doing these things have really helped us to keep on top of the laundry.

Vacuuming
With two small children about, who always seem to be snacking, the downstairs of our house can get covered in crumbs quite quickly! I now vacuum downstairs every day and upstairs four times a week. This only takes about fifteen minutes out of my day but it makes a big difference to the appearance of the house for me - I can't stand seeing dirt on the floor, especially after the kids mealtimes and vacuuming everyday has really helped us keep on top of the cleaning. I use this vacuum cleaner, which is great for getting rid of even small pieces of dirt on the tiles, wooden floors and carpets.

Always tidy up after the kids go to bed
I can't stand coming down to a messy kitchen or sitting room in the mornings, so each night, after we've put the kids to bed, Jacek and I tidy up the sitting room and kitchen. We put all the toys away in their baskets and put them back in the cupboard - I highly recommend investing in some good toy storage, it's been an essential for us in keeping the sitting room tidy and clutter-free from all the kids' stuff.

Load the dishwasher and clean the kitchen before bed
One thing we always do before bed is load the dishwasher and clean the kitchen before bed. This means that we come down to a clean, orderly kitchen in the morning and have a dishwasher full of clean cutlery and crockery ready to be used in time for breakfast. Also, putting the dishwasher on at night means that our appliance curious children won't go near it whilst it's on!

Declutter once a month
Every month I do a decluttering session, as the amount of stuff in our house seems to just build up rapidly. I go through our clothes to see what's been outgrown, wrecked beyond repair or what we simply haven't worn in a long time and I then donate what I've found. I also go through the boys toys and get rid of anything which they no longer play with, that's broken or which no longer belongs to a playset.

Doing this on a monthly basis has stopped our home from being overrun with mountains of stuff - it's amazing how many items can come into your home in just one month!

Deep-clean the bathrooms and kitchen twice a month
I can't express enough how great it is to have a deep-clean of your house, especially the bathroom areas - this is on top of all the daily cleaning of course. Twice a month we remove everything from the bathrooms, clean them down completely, mop and disinfect the floors and then pop everything back in. The kitchen is another area which gets a proper deep-clean - you'd be amazed at how quickly dirt can build up in the cupboards, fridge and oven. Giving these areas a deep-clean helps to stop the dirt building up too much and makes it a much more manageable task to clean them regularly.

If the bathroom is also an area which you aren't too fond of tackling either, I've shared some helpful and easy ways of keeping your family bathroom cleaner and tidier.

Everything has a place
This is such a simple thing but something which took us a while to implement as a family. Giving everything a place has stopped the dirt and clutter building up in our home and has left it easier to clean and a lot tidier too. The kids toys get put away in their baskets and in the cupboards, coats no longer get hung on the stairs and now have their own hooks in the downstairs cupboard.

Any bits and pieces that get left hanging around and which don't have a place to be put generally get put in the bin.

Doing all of these things has helped myself and my family finally have a home which we enjoy being in. Before we were consumed with clutter, things we didn't really need and which had no place to be put away to. This made it very hard to clean as we were always moving things around, but now we have the space to live in our home, as well as having it a clean, tidy and orderly place to be in.
Share:

2 comments

  1. Very interesting...picked a few tips up..especially decluttering.thankyou.😀

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is my goal. I've parted with around half of my belongings this past year to clear clutter. Still not found a place for everything, and like you say impossible to keep a house orderly if you don't. There's always next year.... x

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for reading my blog and taking the time to comment. I appreciate all your comments and try to reply whenever I can.

© Dolly Dowsie | All rights reserved.
Blog Layout Created by pipdig