As I have mentioned in previous posts, I unfortunatly do not have the “Clean Gene”. That’s not to say that I don’t like my home clean, or that I don’t wish for my home to be  clean…it just means that it takes a lot more effort for me to actually WANT to get off the couch and clean. This week I decided to join “We Are That Family”s blog, and do a little Works for me Wednesday edition of After the Alter. This week I am going to give a little tip that I am excited to expand on. It is a little thing called a CHORE LIST! (ok, ok not very original, but it is to me!)

It seems that each week my husband and I dirty the house, and then Saturday and Sunday comes along and I am left with a mess. That mess is very overwhelming, and many times I am left scrambling to clean. It’s not so bad in the winter weather when I am stuck inside anyway, but now that the weather is getting warmer and my neighborhood pool calls to me…I was looking for a way to make it all seem like less of a BIG job. So here is what I came up with. A chore list. Basically the idea around it is, that if I do one or two houshold chores a day during the week, the house will remain clean, and by the time Saturday rolls around I can just straighten up the areas that guests may see and be on my way!

I don’t have a very large house. We have a townhouse. The downstairs consists of a living room (which really isn’t one), a 1/2 bathroom, a family area, a small kitchen and small dining area. The upstairs has 2 bedrooms and a full bath. The idea of the order of this list, will be that by the time Friday comes around, I could easily have people come to our house and not have to scramble around like an idiot to clean it…or to have surprise guests come only to wonder how my husband has such an awful wife who keeps the house so messy!

So where’s what I came up with:

  • Monday: Clean Kitchen, Straighten and Vacuum the Downstairs: Here, I am figuring the weekend has probably left me with some clutter. This allows me to get it all cleared up without taking too much time.
  • Tuesday: Clean Upstairs Bathroom and the bedrooms
  • Wednesday: Steam Mop the floors: All of my floors are carpeted except for a small tiled entry way, the 2 bathrooms and the kitchen. The bathrooms and kitchen are linoleum, so the steam mop is perfect.
  • Thursday: Dust Downstairs
  • Friday: Run Rosie (our Roomba), clean Downstairs bathroom, Straighten downstairs

At this point we are working with trial and error with the schedule, but I figure each day will take about 30-45 minutes to get the job done. Plus this leaves my Saturday’s and Sunday’s to relax and enjoy myself! Doesn’t sound so overwhelming now does it?

So for those of you that wait all week to do a top to bottom houseclean…why not give this idea a try? It might make your week go a little smoother, and not make you cringe at the idea of cleaning the ENTIRE house! It’s time to rock the old school CHORE LIST!