How to Deep Clean & Declutter Every Room in Your House

Member

By Janet Ford
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating:

(16 Ratings)

The home of your dreams can be the one your living in right now

If clutter has become your middle name, this deep cleaning trick may be exactly what the doctor ordered. Make a weekend of it. After we are done with you, you won't recognize your home. Or maybe you WILL recognize your home... finally! This simple tactic always works and anyone can do it. Crank up some motivating music and let's get this party started!

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Environmentally friendly cleaners
Muscle
Camera
Laundry Baskets
Large Garbage Can
Boxes

Step 1

Plan your course of action. We will be tackling one room at a time, with a purpose. The first room needs to be at one end or the other of your home. The 'dead end zone'. No where else you can go but into another room. The last room MUST be the room that leads out into your yard. Backyard or front yard, doesn't matter.
Step 2

Clear out EVERYTHING from that room, and I do mean everything. If it isn't nailed, screwed or glued down.. it needs to move. Place all these things into the next room over. Try to place things in some fashion of organized chaos at the least. Furniture, hanging pictures, nick-knacks, etc.
Step 3

Deep clean the now empty room. Start at the top and work your way down. Ceiling, light fixtures, walls, windows and window sills, base boards and floors. If it's in there, it needs to be scrubbed.
Step 4

Stand back and envision how you want this room to look. Place in the most important pieces back into this room. Furniture. Then your rugs and pictures. Now some other decor items that you simply must have. Try to cut it back to just a couple focal pieces. Remember, we want this to stay clutter free this time. I find that rearranging the furniture in a different configuration really helps motivate me for the next room.
Step 5

Grab a cool drink, congratulate yourself, maybe even take a photograph and then head to the room where you stashed all the stuff from room #1.
Step 6

Repeat step 2-5. Yes, clear everything out once again. You will repeat this until you have done every room in your home.
Step 7

Once you get to the last room of your home, you will be taking everything outside into your yard when you clear it all out to do your deep cleaning.
Step 8

After you've finished all the rooms and are left with the messy yard, head out with a trash can (use your curb side can, it's bigger!), a couple laundry baskets and boxes. Throw away everything that's trash. Place items to sell or donate in the boxes and put items to be returned to the home in the laundry baskets.
Step 9

Be picky!! If it ended up in your yard at the end of this, it's likely that those things should now go into your sell/donate boxes. The less you keep, the less you have to clean later!
Step 10

Load the items you plan to donate to charity into your car. No turning back now. Deliver them immediately if possible.
Step 11

Get a notebook out and go through cleaning and listing every item you plan to sell on eBay, Craigslist or maybe even your local consignment shop. Make it a point to list these things the very next day. If you procrastinate, promise yourself that you will donate the items and get rid of them! If they are important enough to sell, do it NOW!