Well, it may be fall cleaning time, but I’m not doing it. Well, not like my Mom taught me.
Growing up we did fall and spring cleaning. We washed down walls, we scrubbed woodwork, we took out screens and put in storm windows (hooking them on from the outside), we took out the windows to wash, inside and out. This was long before the fold out windows. We had windows with a weighted pulley in them. If you forgot to tie off the rope when you took the window out, it would pull into the wall and be lost within the walls of the house forever!
Some years I do a full fledged 3-4 day spring/fall cleaning in the entire house. Some years I do what I’m doing this year: one room a month. This month I’ll be doing our living room – one of the 3 rooms downstairs that get the bulk of our mess. These will be our projects:
- wash walls
- scrub baseboards
- remove and put away air conditioner
- wash windows (inside and out – but this means someone goes outside and stands on a chair to wash them and I pull them all up and down)
- replace broken storm windows
- de-cobweb the ceiling
- replace the summer leaf/flower garlands with fall leaves and replace the strings of lights on the ceiling
- clean inside, under and behind all couches and chairs and bookcases/TV stand
- (the carpet will not be done until October when we have the carpet in both downstairs rooms done)
Then this room will be done and Holiday Ready! Phew! 1 down, 8 to go!
Blogs I might be linking to:
Menu Planning Monday, On The Menu Monday, Marital Oneness, The Better Mom, Multitudes on Monday, Hear it On Sunday, Sharing His Bounty, What Joy Is Mine, Playdates at the Well, Back to School Monday, Domestically Divine Tuesdays, Time Warp Wife, Funky Planet Frequent Flier Club, Encourage One Another, Living Well Wednesdays, Legacy Leaver Thursday, What’s Up Wednesday, Raising Homemakers, Thought Provoking Thursday, Hearts 4 Home, Thankful Thursday, Raising Mighty Arrows Thursdays, First Day of My Life , Thankful Thursdays, Thankful, Thankful Thursday Brown-eyed Bell(e), Big Family Fridays, Faith Filled Fridays, Feasting In Fellowship Friday, Homemaking Link-up Week-end
Wow, Kate. You’re the woman! How close are you to VA??
Susan, you crack me up!!
I remember cleaning with my mom and she did much like what you do. I, however, have not picked up…YET…on her good housecleaning habits. Any suggestions on how I get passed the guilt for NOT doing it and just do it? I’m really good at punishing myself with guilt, you see.
Jenny, I too struggled with the guilt of not cleaning as well as my mom did. But then I realized that I can do what works FOR ME. So, for years I would tackle one room a month. That gets us thoroughly cleaned twice a year. I sat down and make a list of what needed to be done in each room for a real spring cleaning and I divvied it up into weekly chores. On Fridays we would take an extra 45 minutes in our cleaning routine to get that particular chore done in addition to our regular daily routine. It worked for me! Blessings and best wishes!