During the month of April, I’m encouraging my readers to participate in a 30-Day House Cleaning Challenge (read more here, if you missed my announcement about this challenge last week). Every week day morning at 9 a.m., I’ll post the daily project and every evening around 6 p.m. EST, I’ll post an update and link-up.
April 3, 2013 Project
Your project for today is to surface clean your bedroom(s).
If you have multiple bedrooms in your house, you can choose whichever one most needs a good surface cleaning. I’m planning to do our room (I’ll save the girls’ room for later this month, because it definitely needs a good cleaning!).
Here’s what I’m planning to do:
- Set the timer for 20 minutes and pick up and put away all items that are out of place. (Bonus: find 7 items to get rid of.)
- Pull out any items under the bed that don’t below under the bed and make the bed (wash sheets/bedding, if needed).
- Vacuum/sweep the room. (Bonus: use an attachment on the vacuum to vacuum around the baseboards and vacuum under the bed.)
- Clean fingerprints on the windows.
- Bonus: Spot-clean the carpets and walls.
- You’re done!
You can follow along with my list — or do whatever constitutes “surface cleaning the bedroom” to you. There is no one right way to do this. 🙂
Then, come back here at 6 p.m. EST and I’ll show you pictures of my cleaning accomplishments for today and have a linky so you can link up yours, too!
Are there any bedroom-cleaning tasks that you’d add to my list? Let us know.
Join in the Chatter
::Want to blog about this challenge? If you’re blogging through this challenge with me, be sure to leave your link to your direct post on the daily check-ins. Plus, if you’d like to post your daily posts to the 30-Day House Cleaning Challenge Pinterest Group, just shoot me an email (moneysavingmom @ gmail dot com) and I’ll invite you.
::Want to follow along on Twitter or Instagram? I’ll also be sharing some of my cleaning pictures on my Facebook Page, my Twitter account, and my Instagram account. I’d love to have you do the same or join in the discussion on Twitter and Instagram. Just follow hashtag #Cleanin30 to see what others are tweeting and Instagramming about this challenge!
I’m catching up quickly! Just finished this one. Didn’t do the bed yet because I’m going to wash the sheets and stuff later when I get to the laundry. The floors really needed the be vacuumed because of the dog hair! I added things like wiping down surfaces; I have a dresser and desk in my room.
I am running a day behind. I decided to tackle my bedroom today and then my sons bedroom at a later day.
http://wildheartsocialmedia.net/30-day-housecleaning-challenge-day-3/
I worked on my master bedroom too and rearranged the night stands and my husbands night stand drawer’s as part of the process since they were overflowing with junk!
So glad I organized this shelf. The before was too gruesome to show. 😉 It’s not the actually organizing that’s hard, it’s getting the family to maintain it. Put stuff back. Ahh! This challenge was fun.
What a great task for today! I have been busy de-cluttering our bedroom, but it needs a good dusting for sure. Thank you for the assignment, Crystal.
This is a tough challenge for me today because the bedrooms are so hard to keep clean especially with all of the laundry. I have 3 little ones. My daughter is 4 and my identical twin boys just turned 2. So we spent almost 2 hours going back and forth cleaning up everything in her room and their room. We still haven’t made their beds or put the laundry away. *sigh* How do the other Mom’s do it with young kids? My daughter does help quite a bit and I demand that she does. The boys try the best they can but their attention span is limited.
How do you keep up with laundry? I’m doing at least 1 load to 2 loads a day! We end up wearing at least 1 load of clothes each day so it seems. I’ve been a stay at home Mom now for 2 years and I’m still trying to “catch” up on laundry. Is this normal?
I like this challenge! I’m still on auto-pilot after being out of town for 8 days (spring break) then coming home to host Easter and jumping right back into homeschooling. It’s nice to just follow a plan until I can think straight again. : )
We’ve got 3 bedrooms, but the 3rd serves as an office, so I think I’ll do my room and/or the kids’ room.
Otherwise, with my husband out of town, I think I’ll be adding “fold clothes on my husband’s side of the bed.” 😉
I’m not excited to find out how much dust/dirt has accumulated under our bed!
Thanks to the encouragement yesterday, I woke up this morning with a new attitude! I’m finishing up the living room today, and maintaining the already clean rooms (inasmuch as is possible with littles). I’m going to finish this challenge even if it takes me 3 months 🙂
I am so, so grateful you’re feeling more encouraged today. Yay!
Will you be sharing/posting pictures what you are getting rid of? I enjoyed those posted when you did it last time. Sometimes when I saw something you were getting rid of I would think, “Oh, I have that and don’t need it either!” 🙂
I’m actually planning Clutter Clear-Out for next month, so I’m not worrying about doing any deep de-cluttering until next month. 🙂
But don’t worry, next month, there will be plenty of pictures. Probably more than you’d ever care to see. 🙂
Thank you so much for doing this challenge. After working on it Monday I was very excited to do it yesterday. My master bathroom REALLY needed some help – I won’t tell you how long I spent cleaning it. When I got done and took a step back it was so exciting to see it. I woke up this morning ready for the new challenge and was actually disappointed it wasn’t up yet. lol So I went to work out and here it is and off I go. Zoooom!
New challenges are posted around 9 a.m. EST, just so you can plan accordingly. 🙂
And I’m so happy that you’re finding this challenge helpful!
I just hope you know I wasn’t complaining – I just thought it was great how excited I am about it. 🙂
No, I totally didn’t think you were complaining! Just wanted you to know so you wouldn’t waste time refreshing my blog in the early morning. 🙂
I’m a little late jumping into the challenge. I had a huge paper and project due for the two college courses I’m taking that took priority. 🙂
Today I am focusing on my husband and my bedroom. We got a bunch of junk under the bed that I have really been wanting to go through, so today’s project is perfect!
Hmm. This one will require some determination on my part today. After work I have a doctor’s appointment. I will see what I can do when I get home with whatever energy I have left after fixing dinner. I think I can handle at least dusting the bedroom. I’m not sure about much else past that! We’ll see.
I am tackling the master bedroom! I’ve picked up the kids’ rooms recently, but our room is the baby’s bedroom as well and so it’s much harder to find a peaceful time to clean it. And it shows! 🙁 I already picked up the worst of it and dusted. Now it is naptime but I hope to get in there and finish up later. 🙂
I’m glad this today because o had a party last night and everything that needed to be hidden last minute got shoved in my kids’ rooms. Luckily they spent the night away,but they’ll need somewhere to sleep tonight!
Definitely our room. It seems to become a catchall for laundry. Trying to solve the problem of having main floor laundry. It seems to end upstairs in our room in baskets when it is finished..and the baskets live there. It’s getting the kids to put away their clothes from the baskets that tends to be my biggest challenge!
Yeah! I don’t have anything to do on this one. Our children are all grown so I have 3 extra bedrooms that are guestrooms and are always clean. I try to always keep on top of the master bedroom because clutter in there drives me nuts. I pulled out tuxes and formal wear that belonged to our kids and a friend is coming this afternoon to pick all of that up for her teens. There are at least 50 items leaving my house today 🙂
I will had to my list cleaning the electric fixtures. I always forget that one!
I wash sheets on Thursday so I’ll skip that, but dusting and window cleaning both need to be done. We have small bedrooms so I’ll do me and my husband’s room and the baby’s room.
I’m going to work on my bedroom today. I just don’t have enough energy to tackle the boys’ bedrooms today with them when I get home from work. I have really been working on cleaning out the clutter in my bedroom so it shouldn’t be too bad of a job.
OK, OK, I’ll clean my room, MOM.
😉
My bedroom is still a disaster after getting home from a 2-week trip. All the flat surfaces, including the floor, are piled with laundry, paperwork, files, travel toiletries, books, etc. At least all the laundry stacked around is clean, right? And I already washed the bedding.
I was so excited when I saw this post because I was planning on cleaning my bedroom today anyway. 3 of the kids are with grandma & grandpa so I just have the 1 year old at home with me today. I room is desperate and can’t wait for it to feel normal again! 🙂 P.S. Each time I have tried to post my comment it keeps saying :”Duplicate comment detected, it looks like you’ve already said that” and won’t let me post. I know that I have not already posted. Very strange.
Ok, now I see both comments but still strange as I’m sure I didn’t hit submit yet because I never saw it when I scrolled. Computer glitch I’m sure 🙂
I was so excited when I saw this post because I was planning on cleaning my bedroom today anyway. 3 of the kids are with grandma & grandpa so I just have the 1 year old at home with me today. I room is desperate and can’t wait for it to feel normal again! 🙂
I am choosing the third spare bedroom which my husband calls my “walk in closet.” The entire bedroom is the size of most womens closets at 8ft x 10ft and it is kind of the catch- all for clothing, shoes, line drying laundry, and my favorite; the kitty litter box. I plan to get this room clean and organized today and really need to stay on top of the wood floors in there with all of the dust that seems to accumulate.
What a great morning. I finally decided to take on this challenge. I’ve been reading for the past 2 days and had to “warm up” to the idea I guess. I started today with the day #3 challenge and it was great. I put the 20 min on the timer and went to work on my bedroom. My favorite part? I not only did regular surface cleaning but accomplished dusting the tops of my curtains that always hold so much dust because of our ceiling fan. Wow, do I feel like it’s truly a clean room now!
Oh Crystal, it’s clear you do not live in New England! “Clean fingerprints on the windows.” I still have plastic wrap on my windows! We had a storm here in Boston just last week.
🙂
I’m so excited for the task today– I’m going to take it a step further than surface cleaning because our room needs some {{ s e r i o u s }} organizing {and unpacking from our move!} so I’m planning on adding unpacking and scrubbing the baseboards to the list and packing a box of clothes to sell & give away!
Can I ask you what you’ve found to be the best way to clean baseboards?
I don’t know if this is the best way, but I take either 1 tsp of borax or a squirt or two of dish soap and mix it with warm water. Then I take a microfiber cloth, dip it in the mix and wring it so it’s not dripping, then scrub the baseboards and use a dry cloth to dry as I go along… Once they are clean and dry, I take a new dryer sheet {an idea I got from pinterest} and wipe it over the wood. {The anti-static cling property of the dryer sheet cuts the amount of dust that will stick.}
Thanks Katie, I LOVE the idea about the dryer sheets. I’ve never heard that one!
I’m not excited about this one! I live in a one bedroom apartment, so my bedroom is the most cluttered place. I have so many things in there. aside from the normal bedroom stuff, I have a shelf for my circuit and paper stuff, an area with fabric and sewing stuff, tones of stacks of papers and a file cabinet that is overflowing, 4 big tubs filled with christmas decor (2 of them), yarn (1), and felt skirts (1). I don’t know where to start because there are so many things. I avoid this room for everything accept sleeping and getting ready.
This challenge has really been a help to me since it’s so simple. I normally keep up with all this stuff on a daily basis, but the last 18 months have been a roller coaster ride of chronic fatigue syndrome and hypothyroidism, among other health issues. Needless to say I’ve fallen behind on a lot of the housework, but these challenges are pretty simple, and give me one small goal I can work toward each day to get the house back in order. What’s been neat is that so far the challenge that’s been posted each day is the area I was already planning to tackle that day!
I’ll be working on my master bedroom today. There are quite a few things I need to clear out of the bedroom that just don’t need to be in there. Things just seem to accumulate on those open flat surfaces in my house and it is a battle to keep them cleared off. 🙂