Holiday Housekeeping

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Holiday Housekeeping Tips

It can be hectic preparing for holiday parties and having overnight guests. Keep the daily cleaning tasks to a minimum by breaking them into more doable segments and housecleaning tasks. You’ll feel better having your private places kept clean and organized regardless of whether you’re having a ton of guests over or just plan on relaxing with your family. Here are some holiday housekeeping tips from the local professional maids at Clean Arrival LLC for keeping your home clean for the holidays.

Prioritize Your Cleaning

One of the most important things about cleaning for us when we are working on anyone’s home is that we need to have a plan, this way we never forget any of the priorities or overlook the small things. Creating a checklist of high priority items can help you better understand and visualize your plan of attack and also enjoy the satisfaction of checking them off a list. For example, if you plan on having company over for dinner then it may make the most sense to focus on the dining room, kitchen, and bathroom. Prioritizing your cleaning will also help minimize getting sucked into smaller or unnecessary tasks.

Create a Cleaning Schedule

Getting into a routine is really important if you want to be effective and efficient at cleaning your home. If you don’t already have a routine or cleaning schedule then we highly recommend you create one. This will help you get used to taking care of the important tasks more regularly and also help you become more efficient at them. This will also encourage you to focus on the bigger tasks at hand and better understand which things are less of a cleaning priority.

It’s ok to let some things go for the holidays do to hectic schedules and bad weather, but it’s important to stay on top of the important stuff. Having a cleaning schedule also makes it easier to assign tasks to the kids for help around the house. To help you out with when to do and what to do, create a cleaning schedule to work by through the holidays to keep yourself on track.

Keep Your Entryway Clean

Since the entryway is usually the first place people see when they enter your home, you may want to keep this area clean. We understand that during the holidays with more guests coming and going as well as the bad weather, it can be easy to come home and pile up a bunch of shoes and boots at the door. If you want to make a good first impression and not appear like a total slob, its important to keep the entryway clean when you’re planning on having guests.

Your Cleaning Supplies Should be Available

Keeping your home clean will be a lot more difficult if you keep all your supplies in some unorthodox or unreachable place. Its recommended to keep most of your supplies in the laundry room or cleaning closet but also having some easily available on hand in the kitchen is a must.  It only takes a minute or two to clean up a quick mess and will reduce how often you need to do a thorough cleaning. And this will help to keep your house clean during the holidays.

A Clean Kitchen is Key

Ever noticed how the kitchen is usually a common gathering place for people regardless of whose home they’re in? Considering this is usually where all the delicious aromas will be emanating from during the holiday season it’s advisable to keep the kitchen on the top of your holiday housekeeping checklist. You don’t have to go all out and deep clean the fridge or mop under the oven but having clean countertops and an empty sink can go a long way.

Make Your Bed in Morning

One of the easiest habits to get into is making your bed in the morning. When you wake up and make your bed you not only make your room immediately look cleaner and more organized but you’ll also start each day by immediately accomplishing something. Keep your productivity going from there with other smaller things around your room before you take a shower or your first cup of coffee for the day.

Keep Your Shower Clean

Spraying your shower once a day with an all-purpose cleaner will help minimize soap scum and keep the maintenance cleaning down. If you’re having a lot of guests you may still have to do some deep cleans to remove hair from the drain and other build-up but this will definitely help. This is especially true if you have glass shower doors that can quickly build-up soap and calcium deposits.

Check the Fridge

Keeping up on your fridge may be one of the most rewarding holiday cleaning tasks you can focus on since so much food will be coming and going during this time of year. Make sure that there weren’t any spills from the gravy or a spoiled turkey that’s been sitting in there for two weeks. Another thing is when guests see a filthy fridge where the food comes from they may have second thoughts about the rest of your food sanitation practices.

Keep Your Dishes Clean

One of the worst things you can do is let your dishes pile up. Getting into the habit of cleaning dishes while you wait for your coffee or even something in the microwave can quickly cut down on this unwanted form of clutter. You can also use that time to empty the dishwasher so you’ll have one less chore to do later when things get busy. If your dishwasher isn’t cleaning dishes as it should, here is what you should do to fix a dishwasher. It’s also recommended to enlist the little ones to help or teach them how to clean their dishes after using them instead of putting them in the sink for someone else.

Keep Decorating to a Minimal

Just because you tend to buy more decorations every year does not mean that you must use them all every year. If you are expecting many guests, you may want to keep the decorating to a minimum. Just keep in mind, the decorations you put up also have to come down.

The chances are high that a few days after the visiting and holidays is in the past, you will be the one left to clean. So don’t invite extra stress with more boxes of decoration to have to store.

If your house is the gathering point this year; stick with your tree, door wreath, garland and maybe a few holiday pillows and throws. There is no reason not to do decorating, just do so in a comfy and festive holiday with little effort.

Cooking and Cleaning

You don’t have to have experience working as a chef to understand the value of cleaning as you cook to help cut down on dishes piling up in your sink. Another benefit of cleaning as you cook is that most dishes are easier to clean when they’re freshly used instead of waiting and letting the mess set in.After you get the prep work done for your meal, do a round of dishes. Once your meal is ready, do a quick rinse of utensils and pots before sitting down for your meal.

Dusting While you Relax

Even when you’re relaxing watching tv or a movie, there are usually opportunities to be productive during commercials to do a little holiday housekeeping. This can be as simple as a quick dusting of the tables and chairs in your living room while the ads run. With a dust-free home you’ll catch less crap from your family and guests while also making the air healthier and more breathable for anyone with sensitive lungs.

Centralized Mail

An easy way to keep the appearance of your home clutter-free is by putting all your mail in one place instead of having it all over the place. Going paperless is also another great alternative that’s not only better for the environment but will help minimize the amount of junk coming in.

Keep Up on Trash and Recycling

Take out the trash and empty the recycling bins every day or two. When you get in this habit it will prevent you from having garbage and recyclables pile up and become overwhelming. Here’s how to decipher those plastic recycling numbers so you know what can and can’t be recycled.

Set a Cleaning Timer

There is usually more cleaning that needs to be done during the holidays and if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed then try setting a cleaning timer. Not only will this help you have a better idea of how long certain tasks take but you’ll also be surprised how much you can accomplish in a short amount of time. Also, having that added sense of urgency can give it a more competitive feel where you’re trying to get as much done in a short amount of time, you may even reward yourself at the end for an added incentive.

Declutter Before Decorating

The best thing you can do before putting up the decorations and getting into the whole rigamarole of hanging lights and stockings, it’s important that you give yourself a clean slate and a clean home to work with. It’s one thing to pull out all the ornaments, it’s quite another combining a new mess with old messes that have built up over the year and have gone overlooked. holiday housekeeping gives you a great opportunity to clean out the clutter in your home and make way for the delightful decorations and happy faces of friends and loved ones. I

f you come across stuff that you have had no use for over the past two holidays, consider getting rid of it. You can quickly turn your cleaning into an opportunity to donate things to the needy or a local thrift store. Either way, you’ll feel so much better thanks to your home and storage space appear more collected with less clutter from your holiday cleaning.

Holiday Housekeeping

Service Areas

Our green cleaning service areas include Portland, Milwaukie, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Lake Oswego, Oregon City, Tigard, King City, Troutdale, West Linn, Gladstone, and Gresham. Contact us anytime for cleaning and we will be happy to help!

For the best local Portland house cleaning solutions contact Clean Arrival LLC. To schedule a cleaning service visit our booking page or call us at 503-567-5404. You can also message us on Facebook or email us here.

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