House Cleaning Checklist: The Definitive Cleaning Guide

Spring is upon us, which means the time has come for spring cleaning! Experts say that homeowners should do a good, solid deep cleaning of each room in their home every quarter, or at least four times a year. It is important to set aside time to deep clean your home so it stays healthy, organized, and happy. If this is your first time to do a major house cleaning, have a ton of things at home, or haven’t done a deep clean for quite a while, you may feel overwhelmed and unsure where to start. But don’t worry, this house cleaning checklist will help you start off on the right foot.

Where to Start

The first step you need to take note of when it comes to how to clean a house is to create a plan of action. This includes having a cleaning house checklist that includes cleaning essentials, such as sponge(s), towels, scrub brushes, a mop and bucket, toothbrushes, microfiber cloths, dusters, broom and dustpan, and trash bags. You should also include in this list proper safety gear like gloves, masks, and eyewear. Some of the cleaning agents you’ll be working with may contain harsh chemicals, so make sure you keep yourself protected. Store these away from children and pets. Have a cleaning bin or a closet that holds all of the tools you need so they are readily available when it’s time to deep clean your home.

What Should You Expect?

Clear your schedule for at least 8 hours if you have a three-bedroom house with a family bathroom. Move up or down by one hour for each additional bedroom and bathroom. Some areas will require the moving of furniture and lifting of heavy items such as chairs and sofas so that you can reach the surfaces under them, so ask someone to help you if necessary. As early as now, assess if you are physically capable of performing a deep clean and if you have that amount of time to spend on this task. Otherwise, consider hiring house cleaning services.

What Kind of Tools Should You Have?

One of the first house cleaning tips to take note of is to have the right tools to thoroughly clean your home both efficiently and conveniently. Make sure you have these general cleaning tools:

• Vacuum cleaner

• Microfiber cloths

• Bucket

• Broom and dustpan

• Flat mop

• Rubber gloves

• Squeegee

• Toilet brush and holder

Stock up on quality cleaning solutions to effectively get rid of dirt, grease, and stains without damaging your furniture, appliances, and other parts of the house:

• All-purpose cleaner

• Glass cleaner

• Wood cleaner

• Antibacterial spray or wipes

• Tile cleaner with bleach

• Toilet bowl cleaner

• White vinegar

• Baking soda

When Should You Begin?

Now that you have your cleaning checklist, the next thing for you to do is check your planner and see when would be the best time to do your deep cleaning. During hot summer months, beginning early in the morning allows you to avoid the highest temperatures of the day, minimizing the sweat and exertion of cleaning. Clean on a bright day so that you can catch all of the areas that need attention and are often looked over or can’t be seen in the evening hours. When cleaning windows, check the weather forecast before you start.

Complete House Clean Up Check List

What Should a Cleaning Checklist Include?

To ensure that you have every nook and cranny covered, any cleaning guide would advise you to have a complete list of the things you’ll need for cleaning your home and a cleaning checklist by room. This makes everything organized so you don’t forget anything once you have already started. List down all the rooms in your house and in each room, specify what needs to be cleaned. For example, for your bedroom, add deep cleaning the carpet as one of your tasks. If you don’t know how to clean your bedroom carpet, you can have this done professionally. Now, let’s get specific with the various parts of your house that need to be given priority, such as the living room and bathroom. We will also cover the areas that are most often neglected like the garage and the backyard.

Living Room Cleaning Checklist

Here’s a handy living room cleaning list on how to clean a living room that you can take a screenshot of or copy on your phone list app for easy reference:

• Gather all of your supplies together.

• Start with a 15-minute decluttering.

• Dust down the ceiling and the corners of the walls.

• Spot wash the walls, air vents, doorknobs, doors, and switch plates.

• Dust and clean all art and photographs that are hung on the walls.

• Dust and clean the ceiling fan.

• Take down the draperies, curtains, and blinds and wash these according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

• Vacuum and clean windowsills and corners.

• Dust and clean out the couches and chairs.

• Dust down and clean all accent lamps and other decorative items.

• Remove books from bookshelves and dust them down.

• Unplug and dust down all the electronics, followed by the accent tables and entertainment center.

• Clean the carpets and rugs.

• Clean the doormats inside and outside your doorways.

Remove Non-Essential Items

Once you have all the supplies from your house cleaning checklist mentioned above, the next step is to declutter. Spend at least 15 minutes clearing your living room so it is easier to clean the various parts and corners of this space. Only leave crucial items out in the living room that can’t be moved, such as entertainment centers and TV. Remove all toys, leisure items, and random belongings and place them in a storage container.

Remove Small Furniture

Next up, it’s time to remove smaller furniture. This includes armchairs, coffee tables, lamps, side tables, décor, and anything you can easily pick up and move on your own.

Remove Bulky Furniture

When deep house cleaning, it is a must to move the biggest pieces of furniture that take up the most floor space. This includes the couch, coffee table, and TV stand. Clean these separately. Without these in the living room, it will be easier for you to reach all the areas where they typically sit on or cover. For your window treatments, you can take the curtains down and throw them right into the washing machine. The blinds can be easily washed off with a hose outside the house or in the bathtub.

Tackle the Floor

Sparkling clean floors may seem unattainable, but just a few steps can help your floors look brand new. Hardwood: Whether oak, pine, bamboo or other wood, the methods for cleaning wood floors are similar. To avoid grim and bacteria buildup, sweep or dry mop your floors at least once a week to remove the top layer of dirt. When using a vacuum, make sure it’s safe for hardwood floors or has a ‘hardwood’ setting. Next, take a bucket of warm water mixed with a hardwood cleaning solution of your choice and remove excess water from the mop before running it across your floors. Finally, use your dry mop or mop mads to absorb any excess liquid from every area of the floor before wrapping up. Linoleum: For linoleum floors, use the same process but swap the wood cleaner for a solution of water, vinegar, and dish soap. Finish by wiping the entire floor with a microfiber cloth. Carpet: A good steam cleaner can do wonders for a dirty carpet. If you don’t have access to a carpet steamer, no worries. First vacuum up all the loose debris and dust, and then focus on any stained or soiled areas. Fill a spray bottle with 1 cup white vinegar and two cups water, and apply to all areas, including corners and edges. Let the solution sit for 30 minutes or until dry before blotting any wet areas with paper towels or a cloth and running the vacuum over it one more time. For more information on how to preserve your carpet, check these Carpet Care & Maintenance Tips.

Time to Polish

Polishing can be done last, once all other tasks are done. If it has been a while since you last dusted, you may be surprised at the amount of dust that may fall onto your recently vacuumed or mopped floor, so keep your broom or vacuum handy.

Bathroom Cleaning Checklist

Before we get to the steps on how to clean a bathroom, make sure to have all these cleaning supplies and tools ready:

• Toilet bowl cleaner

• Glass cleaner

• All-purpose bathroom cleaner

• Distilled white vinegar

• Baking soda

• Disinfecting wipes

• Toilet brush

• Spray bottle

• Squeegee

• Sponges, microfiber cloths, or paper towels

• Scrubbing brush

• Broom and dustpan or vacuum

• Mop

• Bucket

These are the areas you need to take note of:

• Mirror

• Medicine cabinet

• Vanity exterior

• Linen closet

• Faucets and fixtures

• Sink

• Bathtub

• Shower door or curtain

• Wastebasket

• Vent

• Exhaust Fan

• Grout

• Toilet

• Floor Now, let’s start cleaning!

Empty the Cabinets

When emptying your cabinets to be reorganized, you will want to start by removing every item you have on each shelf, followed by a full clean-up. Spray the interior of the cabinet with a cleaner then wipe everything down. Scrub the corners with a soft brush if needed.

Be Prepared

If you haven’t gathered all the cleaning supplies and tools yet, go ahead and get them. As mentioned earlier, the first step in our house cleaning checklist is to have all the items for cleaning inside the room so you never have to go back and forth getting them. Refer to the list above so you are sure to have everything you need before you start cleaning the bathroom. Protect yourself from harmful chemicals that may be present in the cleaning agents you use by wearing safety goggles, a mask, and a pair of gloves.

Start with Your Bathtub

Giving your bathtub a good clean can easily be done with what you likely already have in your household. Start by sprinkling Comet or baking soda on each area of the tub, then turn on the water to fill it with hot water. Grab a towel and bucket to begin scrubbing the tub from top to bottom, and then repeat with fresh water until there is no more dust and residue or baking soda left over. The last wipe down should use just hot water and don’t forget to scrub the corners of the wall surrounding the tub – most people forget about those!

Deep Clean Your Floor

Tackle the floor, baseboards, and all the nooks and crannies that you can’t typically get to and don’t pay much attention to. This includes buttons and knobs, bottoms of cabinets and doors, and so on. Be sure to use a bathroom cleaner that is compatible with the material of the floor you have. If you have tiles, use a toothbrush and baking soda to thoroughly clean the grout. You will be amazed at how much whiter and brighter your bathroom will look! Throw heavy bath rugs into the washing machine and then hang until they fully dry (as well as your freshly cleaned floor!).

Kitchen Cleaning Checklist

The kitchen is the highest traffic area in a home, which makes it also the most difficult to clean. Follow our cleaning guide below on how to clean a kitchen to get the best tips for each step of the process.

Appliances

When cleaning your stove, remove the grates and burners and place them in the kitchen sink. Apply a pea-sized amount of grease-cutting dishwashing liquid to a damp sponge then scrub the grates and burners to release spills and dirt. Rinse the sponge clean and repeat to remove any soap residue. Wipe off the watermarks with a kitchen towel or microfiber cloth. To loosen grime in your microwave, fill a microwave-safe bowl with 2 cups of water and ½ cup vinegar. Heat on full power for 3-4 minutes until this boils. Let the steam fill the microwave, then wipe down the interior walls with a sponge. Wash the turntable by hand in the sink. Move the kitchen appliances to clean the walls and floor that they cover. If, while cleaning this part of your house, you see appliances that are broken that you want to get rid of, we can help you with this. Check our Appliance Pick Up Services

Remove the Unwanted

Most of our homes hold many unusable items without us even knowing it, especially in our refrigerators and cabinets. And if you’re a hoarder, house cleaning and getting rid of items you don’t need in the kitchen might not be something you’d look forward to but it’s something you need to do to keep this part of your home clean and organized. Do a thorough check of all the items in your fridge and toss everything that is past the expiration date or you are unsure of. Do the same for the cabinets, tossing anything you haven’t used in over a year – you most likely don’t need it. As you’re removing items, wipe down the fridge drawers and cabinet surfaces.

Final Touches

Move anything left sitting on the kitchen counters to their designated storage space. Sort mail and discard of any no-longer-needed odds and ends that have been sitting there for quite some time. If you don’t know what to do with it, find a place for similar items – not on the counters. Finally, polish the sinks and add decorations to make your kitchen look brand new.

Garage Cleaning Checklist

One of the best tips on how to clean a garage is to take a moment before starting to think about the ideal floorplan that would be most conducive to you and how you would like to efficiently use the space. While cleaning your garage may seem like a big task, if you begin by following the simple steps below, it will be a manageable undertaking that won’t leave you feeling overwhelmed.

Clear the Space

Did you know that it’s estimated that only 30 percent of people actually store their cars in the garage? Why? Most of us have too much junk, that somehow ends up stacked on the floor of the garage. In this house cleaning guide, we will help you get that organized. The first step is to declutter your garage. Choose a section of your garage to start with and move everything out onto the driveway to sort through. Doing this one section at a time will allow you to see what space you have to work with and what types of storage might work best when it’s time to organize the items that you’ll decide to keep.

Dispose of Old Items

Designate boxes, bags, or set areas to get rid of every unwanted item in your garage. Whether it’s to be donated, given to a family member, or taken to the corner for pickup, it helps to get all your unnecessary garage items out in an organized fashion. Jiffy Junk can help make the process as easy as possible. We will help you clear up some space and remove your unwanted junk! Our professional junk hauling service will come to your property and be prepared to work right away. Make sure to check out our Junk Removal Service and leave the hard work to the professionals.

Get the Corners

Finding the right tools and equipment in the garage is the worst if there is no method or organization of where items are stored. Make the most of the space by taking advantage of affordable and cheap solutions such as open-shelving units that can hold labeled bins or boxes, ceiling storage racks for seasonal equipment or decorations, shoe racks, or hooks for hanging sports equipment or bulky items. The goal is to get everything up and off the floor so you can take back your garage space while still having what you need in it, just stored in a better way!

Check for Damage

Look for any signs of leaking or problematic cracks in the foundation. If any water is found from the walls, ceiling, or any area of the garage, pinpoint the exact area it is coming from to find the best way it can be addressed. Soak up any grease or motor oil spills so that all liquid is absorbed and lifted before trying to scrub away any stains. Vacuum any cobwebs and debris before sweeping the floor to pick up any dirt, bugs, grass clippings, and efflorescence. Mild detergent and water can take care of most light stains.

Backyard Cleaning Checklist

Exterior house cleaning can be grueling work, depending on how much stuff is scattered around the yard or needs maintenance. Dead bushes, plants, and trees make cleaning up in your backyard more tedious. Rake old leaves up in spring, pull weeds, remove excessive debris. Keep the lawn manicured and remove weeds in plant beddings as well as between driveway cracks. In the Fall, rake the leaves into bags or, if your city allows it, out on the curbside for pick up. Remember to empty the gutters of leaves and debris. Check these regularly to avoid clogged gutters that could create overflow and other issues. Empty and drain hoses in the fall and place them in the garage or shed to avoid freezing with water in them. Make sure to winterize your lawnmower and drain your snow blower after winter use.

Shed

One of the things that need to be included you’re planning on how to clean up your backyard is your shed. Look for rodent or pest infestations, wasp hornets, and beehives that could have made your shed their home. Remove all unused tools before cleaning out the shed and organizing everything inside. Clean the deck surface and reseal, restain if needed. If you do not have a shed, but have an area on the side of your house for trash cans, planters, and hoses, make sure it is as organized as possible and consider making a temporary enclosed area with fencing or wood so it is not unsightly to your neighbors’ view.

Tidy Up

Yard cleaning can take a considerable amount of time, depending on the size and amount of waste and debris, but it can be a very rewarding process. Start by cutting overgrown weeds, grasses, and small plants. Next, take out large waste and debris like boulders, rocks, tree branches, old soda cans, plastic bottles, and candy wrappers. Then trim shrubs and overgrown trees. Use a rake to remove debris and dead leaves under them as these will invite bacteria and mold. If you don’t have some of the tools needed to perform these tasks, you can rent these at affordable house cleaning stores.

Care for Aesthetics

Now that you’ve cleaned up your backyard, you might want to spruce it up a bit so you can expand your living space beyond the confines of your home and start spending more relaxing time in this area. Begin by adding some patio furniture. Invest in a storage bench that will also function to keep prevent clutter. Get some solar-powered lights to illuminate the pathways. This will not only look beautiful in the evening, but it will also serve to keep you and your guests safe. Plant some green ornaments like vines and climbing plants. You can also start an herb garden that will also add a nice scent to your backyard.

Natural Deep Cleaning Tips

Opting for natural cleaning solutions, such as white vinegar, baking soda, acidic citrus fruits such as lemon, and borax prevents you from getting exposed to harmful chemicals while at the same time protecting our environment. These green alternatives are just as effective as the products listed on most cleaning house checklists. You can also replace paper towels with old shirts or microfiber cloths to reduce waste. And if you want to have that fresh, clean smell, you can put a few drops of aromatic essential oil into your solution.

How to Know If You Need a House Clean-Up

You should not wait for your house to be cluttered, unkempt, dirty, or to smell to clean it up. It is not good for one’s physical and emotional health to live in an unsanitary environment. Once you have tackled all the things you’ve added to your house cleaning checklist, you will feel better. It is totally acceptable to divide up the cleaning over a period of days to a week or two if that will make it less stressful for you. Many people have multiple demands with kids, jobs, school that may make it unreasonable to accomplish a total house clean in a matter of hours or a day.

Bless This Mess?

Some people can afford the luxury of professional services for some of the household maintenance chores or all of them. You can also consider getting expert consultation from organizing services and the suggestions may be very helpful. Your health and safety are paramount and having a clean, organized space in which to live usually proves to benefit one in many ways. A good clean-up is the first step towards a cleaner, more organized, healthier lifestyle!

Dust

Dust sounds harmless, right? It is actually made up of tiny particles of dead skin and shedding from materials. Because the dust particles are so small, they are easy to inhale without knowing it. Living in a dusty space for long periods of time can wreak havoc to your health and can lead to a number of adverse immune reactions, such as respiratory problems, asthma, lead poisoning, and allergic reactions.

Clothes

A pair of slippers here, a t-shirt there, a jacket laid out on the couch, unfolded laundry — don’t just leave your clothes scattered all throughout your space. Sort and get rid of the items you haven’t worn in a year and probably won’t be wearing again. Fold and organize your drawers and rehang the clothes in your closet in a way that is most conducive to your daily life, and what you wear most.

Lack of Storage

One of the things to include in every cleaning guide: storage. Having proper storage for everything is key to having a clean and organized home. If you have limited storage space at home, invest in storage savers, such as shelving for inside the closets, shoe racks, spice racks, baskets that can serve as décor but also serve a functional purpose like storing blankets, and bins that can fit under your couch or bed.

Stains, Stains, Stains…

Stains on the floor, couch, or cabinets can make the room look messier than it actually is, so spend some time getting these stains out. One way to clean stains is with warm water and a mild detergent or soap mixture. Simply mix these together and use a rag or soft sponge to rub the stain off. You can also use natural stain removers like baking soda, white vinegar, salt, and lemon juice.

FAQs

How to Clean a House Professionally

While this guide shows you how to clean your room step by step, you might not have all the tools and cleaning agents to clean your house as efficiently as professional cleaning services do. You also might not have the amount of time necessary to cover all the areas of your home. Whatever the case may be, you can always rely on Jiffy Junk to do the work for you at affordable, competitive pricing.

How to Clean a Bathroom in Under 30 Minutes

First things first, put any items that are laying on the counter back to where they belong. Grab all the towels and bath mats and pop them into the washing machine. After that, focus on the tub and shower first. Run hot water and allow the cleaner of your choice to soak in on the areas in the tub. You can also spray down the shower before rinsing off and draining. Next, use a glass cleaner to wipe down all the mirrors and glass shower doors. Clean the toilet with a toilet cleaner and wand, and wipe down the surfaces, handles, and any problematic spots on the floor.

How to Deep Clean a House on Your Own

Here are the things you need to keep in mind to maintain a clean home: Start by removing any clutter. Focus on one room at a time. Take inventory of what you need to get rid of or put into another area of your home, organize, and take all dirty items, towels, and clothes that need to be washed to the laundry room. Wipe down windows and fixtures, sweep the floor, dust, and clean the appliances.