The Homemaker’s Cleaning Guide (sorted by room)
Do you hate cleaning your house? Do you feel overwhelmed at the thought of how to keep up with every little thing that has to be cleaned at home? The Homemaker’s Cleaning Guide is here to help!
With these cleaning tips and tricks, you’re sure to become a master homemaker in no time! Each section of this guide is separated by room in the home, so if you need to clean up from top to bottom, you’ll find everything you need right here!
Once you’ve learned how to take care of your home, refer to each section if you want to do a deep spring cleaning in a specific part of the house or if you want to train your children to help out!
If we had houses that we never had to use, we wouldn’t have to clean a thing. But we live in our homes, which means that we’re almost always cleaning things up! And if you’re a stay-at-home mom, you can multiply your housekeeping frequency times a million!
While it’s true that you’ll have to clean up A LOT, you can actually learn to enjoy homemaking! You might even change your job title from mom to professional homemaker! Read on to find handy and helpful cleaning tips and tricks for every part of the home!
The following master to do lists are sorted, alphabetically, by room. You will find cleaning and decluttering tips. For more organizational type posts, be sure to see my Ultimate Guide to Organizing Your Home! <— note: once the organizing page is done, we will link it and rewrite this sentence over there to say “cleaning and decluttering”. Actually, once I have it in drafts, we can do this
Attic Cleaning Tips
The attic can easily become the “forgotten” spot of the house. Unless you go up there often, you can forget you even have it! But it also needs to be cleaned, especially if you use it for storing valuable items.
Attics are also popular spots for household pests, such as rats, mice, roaches, and squirrels. So keeping using tried-and-true cleaning tips and tricks in this area is an important way to keep these pests out of your home. No one wants to live in a house with unwanted vermin in it.
Bathroom Cleaning Tips:
The bathroom is probably the most used room in the entire house. And, because it’s so heavily used, it’s usually the one that needs the most frequent cleaning. Sometimes, it can feel like the bathroom is never truly clean, no matter how many times a week you take care of it.
Keeping a handle on your bathroom cleaning routine is a good way to avoid getting behind or feeling overwhelmed when you’re cleaning this part of the home. These bathroom cleaning tips and tricks can help you get the deep clean feel you want, even if your family has plenty of kids in it!
- Use this Bathroom Cleaning Checklist to get an idea where to start when you’re ready to clean!
- Learn how to remove unsightly bathtub stains and make your tub look brand new again!
- Pick up this Printable Bathroom Cleaning List to make sure you hit all the important parts of your bathroom!
- Looking for a deep cleaning bathroom schedule? This Deep Cleaning Bathroom List tells you exactly what part of the bathroom to clean and when!
Child’s Room
If you have children, then you already know the challenges of keeping a child’s room clean. If your kids are anything like mine, then you might be used to seeing piles of dirty laundry, school books all over the place, and toys that are just strewn from end to end.
Not only is it important to keep a child’s room clean, it’s important to help them learn how to take care of their own spaces in a responsible way. After all, we learn how to take care of our homes when we learn to clean up as children. Try these cleaning tips and tricks to make it easier to keep a child’s room neat!
- Get out ahead of the upcoming school year by trying these Back to School Cleaning Hacks over the summer!
- Struggling to keep the children to help out around the house? Use these tips to learn How to Get Kids to Help You Clean, especially in their own rooms!
Dining Room
Nothing brings a family together like sitting down to a good meal at the dining room table. Over time, though, the dining room can pretty dirty. If you have toddlers or preschool-aged children, you’ve likely spent a lot of evenings wiping up food stains from the table and the floor. But sometimes older kids (and adults) make messes all on their own and turn the dining room into a disaster zone.
Keeping your dining room clean means using these practical cleaning tips and tricks to stay on top of your cleaning schedule. And, with practice, you can set up a doable dining room cleaning routine that makes keeping this area neat much, much easier.
Entryway
The house entryway is basically the “Main Street” of the family. Everyone travels through this space, just about every single day. With all that foot traffic, the entryway can get grungy pretty fast. Sometimes, the entryway is also the “drop zone”, where everyone tends to drop their belongings: shoes, backpacks, briefcases, lunch bags, and more.
Try these cleaning tips and tricks to keep your entryway streamlined and organized – the perfect welcoming space for your guests and your family!
- Ready to tackle your entryway at last? Pick up this Printable Entryway To-Do List to give you a game plan!
Garage
Does your garage double as a storage unit? Since garages are often closed to the public, we can end up just tossing things in there that we no longer want or feel like we’ll get to straightening up “someday”. But it’s worth it to keep a garage clean.
When the garage is neat, it’s easier to park your vehicles there and it’s easier to know what you have and don’t. That keeps you from buying things over again that you don’t really need. These garage cleaning tips and tricks are a huge help!
**coming soon**
Generic Cleaning Tips & Tricks:
Some cleaning tips and tricks are useful, no matter what part of the house you’re cleaning. You can use these handy hacks for every part of your home, your automobile, even your yard! And they’re great for teaching children how to help out with cleaning around the home – something all of us would love them to do more often.
There are tips here for deep cleaning your home, straightening up each season, starting a declutter session, and even using cleaning printables to simplify your routine! Try some of these useful cleaning tips with your family!
- Find out How to Avoid Cleaning Mistakes and do it right!
- These Speedy Deep Cleaning Tips can make cleaning a snap!
- Read 9 Cleaning Tips from the Pros to make your home sparkle and shine!
- Did you know that you can actually clean your mailbox? Read about the 7 Things You Need to Be Cleaning and Probably Aren’t.
- You don’t have to break the bank to clean your home? See How to Clean On a Budget.
- Are you saving deep cleaning for springtime? See Why You Should Deep Clean Seasonally.
- Our Top 10 Homemaking Posts are packed with tips for cleaning up!
- Learn How to Clean Problem Areas to avoid letting your home turn into a disaster area!
- These Uses for Baby Wipes are great for quick cleaning sessions!
- These Spring Cleaning and Organizing Tips are great for a spring freshen-up!
- Learn How to Do a Basic Declutter to start simplifying your life!
Cleaning Guide Printables:
- Learn How to Set Up a Homemaker Handbook to keep up with your cleaning tasks.
- This Printable Daily To-Do List is great for finishing your work each day!
DIY Cleaning Recipes:
- These Natural Cleaning Recipes and Tips are awesome for using the things you already have to clean!
- Find out how you can go about Choosing a Scent for Your Natural Cleaning Recipes.
- Try these Non-Toxic Cleaning Solutions and Recipes to clean without harsh chemicals.
Kitchen
When you have kids, the kitchen can become the busiest (and often, dirtiest) room in the house! Between cooking meals, packing lunches, and having family and friends come over, it’s all too easy to let the kitchen become permanently messy. It’s worth it, though, to put in the effort to clean the space where you cook. Having a clean kitchen helps keep your food safe from germs and makes you feel better about cooking for the family!
Try these kitchen cleaning tips and tricks to keep your cooking area clean!
- See how we try Cooking in the Kitchen to avoid making messes! And be sure to read Part 2 to see how we make it work!
- I try to include regular cleaning in my meal planning session. See how I work in Kitchen Cleaning!
- Take a look at my Kitchen To-Do Cleaning List to decide what to tackle each week.
- Ready to deep clean? Use my Kitchen Deep Cleaning List to get started!
- We tried the Lysol No-Touch Kitchen System. See how it worked for us!
- Hang this Printable Kitchen Cleaning List on the fridge to get everyone involved!
- The Sonic Scrubbers Kitchen Cleaning Tool is a great help for regular cleanups!
- Learn how to Deep Clean Your Kitchen, plus try a simple meal plan for deep cleaning week!
Laundry Room:
Laundry. It is the never-ending cleaning task that all homemakers face. It seems like you can just never catch up, no matter how many cleaning tips and tricks for laundry you try.
Below, I’ve gathered my tips on managing household laundry. You will not only find hacks to help you tackle your overwhelming piles of laundry to wash, laundry to fold, laundry to iron, and laundry to put away, but also tips and tricks for keeping your laundry room tidy! You will also find a few reviews of my favorite laundry products.
- Should you wash an item in the machine or by hand? Find out How to Machine or Hand Wash Your Clothes!
- Thinking of making over your laundry space? Learn How to Redo Your Laundry Room!
- Read Kelli’s Life-Changing Laundry Hack to find out how I’m getting my laundry done faster than ever!
- Try these seven Simple Steps to Getting Laundry Done!
- These Top 10 Laundry Tips are handy for managing laundry each week!
Living, Den, Family Room:
When you have a family, the living room usually becomes the most-used space in the home. Think about it: How much time do the kids spend watching TV in that room? How often do you and the family relax in there after dinner? Where do you usually bring guests to talk and relax? The living room.
So it’s understandable that the living room needs cleaning on a regular basis. In fact, the living room furniture often gets the most use and requires the most upkeep (aside from the beds in the bedrooms). So these living room cleaning tips and tricks are great for keeping this part of the home clean and in good condition!
- See how to set up your Homemaker Handbook to manage the family room!
- Learn how to care for this part of the home with this handy Family Room Cleaning List!
- Use National Cleaning Week to tackle your Living Areas!
- Ready to give your living room carpets a refresh? Read our review of the Hoover Max Extract 60 Carpet Cleaner!
Master Bedroom
The master bedroom should be the most relaxing room in the home. Keeping the bedroom neat and clean is a critical part of getting a good night’s rest. Having a dirty or cluttered bedroom can prevent you from feeling relaxed, which in turn can affect the quality of your rest. Often, though, it turns into a drop zone for clothes, kids’ items, and other objects that we think we might “need” later.
Keep your master bedroom clean and organized for a good night’s sleep with these helpful tips.
- See how tackled our master bedroom during National Cleaning Week and got a head-start on decluttering!
Office
The home office tends to be one of the messiest rooms in a house. When your workspace becomes cluttered with papers, files, and other items, it can easily lead to disorganization. To keep things organized, it’s important to keep the space tidy and free of clutter.
How can you keep your home office organized and avoid clutter? Here are tips for stress-free work!
**coming soon**
Playroom
The kids’ playroom is usually the first part of the house to get messy. They allow you to provide children with an area to play with a variety of toys all at once. To maintain an organized playroom, remove unused toys. But if you’ve already done this, you may still be having trouble keeping it neat and organized.
These simple cleaning tips and tricks are great for straightening up the playroom for good!
- Use these Printable Kid Chore Charts to show the kids how to clean the playroom themselves!
- Learn How to Take a Disciplined Approach to Cleaning with Kids to teach responsibility for keeping playspaces clean!
Porches
There are so many ways to clean up and decorate porches these days! Porches require maintenance like seasonal decor, painting the front door, and cleaning the steps.
One of the easiest cleaning tips and tricks for porches is to keep them relatively clutter-free. Avoid adding too many items near the front door to keep the porch from looking cluttered. Plus, when there are fewer items on the porch, there are fewer items to clean!
Looking for more cleaning tips and tricks? Check out my Homemaking on the Cheap Pinterest board by clicking the image below!
My Cleaning Product Recommendations:
These affiliate products from Amazon are great for tidying up the home!