How to clean your room — did your mom ever teach you? Let’s vacuum, get out the clutter and create a peaceful place!
This post was originally written in January 2014, and was updated in June 2017.
A bedroom is a special place. We looked at homes and they had HUGE bedrooms, and I asked myself if I want such a large space devoted to an area I spend SO little time in.
Honestly, I sometimes run through my bedroom to use the restroom, but in reality, I mostly just “retire” to my bedroom at night when I truly need some peace after a long day.
On Wednesdays I focus on bedroom cleaning so it can become a place that I enjoy and find peace in. This is part of my weekly cleaning schedule which you can read all about. I love it — but you have to find how to make it work for you.
Did you know it’s taken me 37 years to figure out how to spell vacuum.
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– Best Western Park Place — it’s the CLOSEST hotel, has a breakfast and if it’s available for your dates, BOOK IT. If not, check out the Tropicana.
– Cambria – this is my favorite one with a great price point for larger groups – has a water park and free breakfast (not walkable though) – but if you want a walkable suite check out Castle Inn
True story.
Wednesdays are about bedrooms, and since our bedrooms are all carpeted, I vacuum that day too
Weekly jobs:
Vacuum — I just have your basic vacuum. The fancy vacuum we had died, so I took to the repair shop and he said it was just dead. He recommended just a basic vacuum, very few bells and whistles (you can attach a hose and it has a few parts). It has a bag (which I enjoy taking out, it’s nice to dump it all over my trash and then get to re-vacuum around my trash).
It’s big and yellow.
Rotating jobs
(this is the time to organize the bedrooms — and each of these is done every 6 weeks and comes-up in my tick-tick to do list on my phone/tablet)
- Mr middle’s drawers (the boys organize their own drawers with my supervision, this is a time to pull out items that are too small and put them in a bin to hand down as well as to see if there are clothes they need and basically to make sure their dresser doesn’t look like it’s vomiting clothes — they hate this job, I wish they’d just keep it clean)
- El Presidente’s drawers
- Organize master closet (pull out things that I don’t wear or put stuff in the right “section” – and I’d say “section” pretty loosely)
- Organize my drawers (because I sometimes have similar problems as the boys — but I started doing shirt filing, and boy oh boy has that made my shirt drawer a dream!). You can find out more info on shirt filing here.
- Every 3 weeks I flip or rotate our couch cushions, and if I’m feeling extra exuberant I vacuum it out. We didn’t do this on an old couch we had and it wore so badly, i’m adamant we do it with this one!
UPDATE IN 2017: I don’t take care of my teenagers drawers anymore. I just don’t have time for it anymore. They’re horrible. But they’re their horrible. I do my daughters when we change seasons. However, I am slowly pushing more of it on her.
BTW — all of these jobs and rotations can be found in my weekly cleaning schedule template.
- Wash my bras (just done when they need doing)
- Wash the bathmats (not done weekly, each bathroom is on a schedule depending on how dirty they get — I’ll let you guess whose gets the dirtiest!)
- Conner vacuums the playroom
- Spencer vacuums their room (the boys share a room)
- Paige vacuums the tiny area between her dresser and under the window — we’re working on it)
BTW — if you’re looking for a checklist of things that need to be cleaned in each room. Check out my printable house cleaning lists:
On Wednesdays when I have time I try to work on my family video (I do a video every year that puts all our video clips as well as photos to music, it’s a favorite, and it keeps those things organized too so we can enjoy them!). Wednesdays is also early out so I’m often just trying to make it through the afternoon with no bloodshed. Darn you early out!
2017 UPDATE: Dude, I’m insanely busy — the family video is a thing of the past…. I wish I could get on top of it, but this just isn’t the season. Life is like that — give yourself a break. 🙂
Looking for bedroom organization tips? Check out my organized home page!
*My hope is that this weekly cleaning schedule might inspire you to make your own. I know my own OCD schedule won’t work for everyone, but I really think that cleaning schedules helps you stay on top of your life without being overwhelmed with all of you have to do. You can read more about weekly cleaning here.
Sammy Dolan says
Thanks for the weekly cleaning schedule, I like the idea of tackling 1 room per day. Makes the chore of cleaning much more manageable!
Hilary Erickson says
It sure is! I hope it helps!