Day 16: Our Saturday Morning Get Clean Routine

Growing up, Saturday mornings were the bomb! First, we slept in (no school-yippee!), then we'd wake up to a breakfast of champions (pancakes, eggs, the works!!) and the morning was topped off by laying around watching cartoons in our pjs (miss those days-sigh!). My son doesn't believe me when I tell him that Cartoon Network, Noggin, & Nick Jr weren't around when Mommy was a little girl!!

Fast forward to 2011-now our Saturday mornings still start out with a yummy pancake breakfast and the boys watching a toon or two, but once they've eaten, things generally shift to clean mode! The goal is to get as much spruced up in under two hours (today I managed to clean in an hour)!! So, wanted to share our quick Get Clean Routine!!

1) Grab my Cleaning basket: Having all of my sprays, cleaners and sponges in one basket really does make everything more convenient. (Bought my cheapo basket at Dollar Tree-for you guessed it $1!!) The other thing I grab is an empty store bag to dump trash in as I go along.

2) Kitchen: A lot of times I start in the kitchen, since I'm washing and putting away dishes from breakfast. Plus, cleaning the kitchen's pretty quick. (Wipe the counters, island, trash can, microwave, stove, fridge & kitchen table-love to use Clorox Green Works All-Purpose Cleaner. It's wonderful-smells like coconuts and can be used on everything...even floors! Sweep & mop the floor, then done!!) 15-20 minutes

3) Bathrooms: Ah, the dreaded bathrooms (we have 2.5 which equals 3 bathroooms to clean). I like to start with the dirtiest part-the toilets. But the good news is that I get to use my Clorox Toilet Wand. 

Another awesome product if you've never used it. It takes the ick out of cleaning toilets-it's a simple wand with an ejectable & disposal cleaning pad. I'm probably crazy, but I like to get all of the toilets out of the way, so I start downstairs then run up to clean the other two!

From there it's smooth sailing. Pull out the Green Works to clean the sinks, door handles, counters, mirrors, showers, bath tubs and floors. 30-45 minutes

4) Dust & Vacuum:  We store our vacuum downstairs, so it's always nice to start upstairs then work our way down.  20-30 minutes

Disclaimer: I'd like to add that Saturdays are not the only days that we clean-hence it only taking a good hour to spruce things up. We find that quickly cleaning & straightening up after ourselves on a daily basis makes it less overwhelming to clean over the weeked!

(BTW-it definitely helps to have an amazing hubby that rolls back his sleeves and gladly tag teams with cleaning & other chores). 

What's your Get Clean Routine?? Got any super sized cleaning tips? Please share!!