Creating Clean #4: Bathroom & Bedroom Cleaning

Welcome back, faithful readers! I hope that you've enjoyed taking a look at my cleaning routines, homemade cleaning recipes, & planning methods for cleaning & I hope that it's helped you figure out a way to clean that works best for you.

I want to assure you that I am no superhero when it comes to cleaning. Obviously there are things that come up from time to time & I am not able to get to cleaning. Sometimes a family member is sick & we can hardly get dinner on the table, let alone clean, or I'm just too unmotivated/busy/lazy to wash the floors. Life happens & we need to just go with the flow sometimes. I've learned that it's always way more important to play with my daughter than it is to scrub the toilets, or unload the dishwasher, & that's partly why I do the bulk of my cleaning during her nap on Thursdays (the other "part" is that it takes me waaaaay less time to clean when I don't have a mini obstacle around my ankles).

I've also learned that it can be something that I do with Ruby when I'm feeling especially energetic. For example, she loves to take a rag & "dust" with me, "vacuum" the rug with her elmo vacuum, & my personal favorite, she loves to sweep the floors with me after mealtimes. I got Ruby her very own mini broom, so she gets pretty excited to help mama instead of insisting that I hold her or color, etc. I also like to have her help me unload the dishwasher sometimes. Sure, it takes a lot longer to finish, but she gets a huge sense of accomplishment from it & I like that we're doing something productive together. Win win.

I do not, however, let her help me clean the bathroom. There's just too much potential for things to get stuck in the toilet (one of my biggest fears... ahem, see the lock on our toilet in the picture below), &/or for her to touch really nasty things. I save the really dirty cleaning for when she's fast asleep.

The key that I keep bringing up is finding a system & schedule that works best for you. Maybe you need your partner to do more chores & that's a conversation you need to have or maybe you need someone to play with your kids so you can get more done. Maybe you'd rather clean one room a day or spend a bigger chunk of one day cleaning. Find something that works for you & your family! Some people have way stricter cleaning routines than I do-- others wash their sheets a few times a year without batting an eye. Whatever works for you, works for you. Here's what works for me (make sure you refer back to this post for all my cleaning recipes):

Bathroom Cleaning

 Me vs. toilet

Toilet (once a week)

• I sprinkle about ¼ cup of baking soda in the bowl & then squirt white vinegar in the bowl (make sure you use enough to make it fizz). Take your toilet bowl brush & give the bowl a good scrubbing. If it’s not getting clean, you may need to let it soak for awhile. 

Tub & shower (once a week)

• I use Bon Ami cleaner on our tile walls in our shower & the bathtub. I first wet all of the surfaces a bit & then sprinkle a little bit of the cleaner on all of the surfaces. I then use a scrubby sponge & dig into cleaning. I also keep a spray bottle of white vinegar in the shower & spray all of the surfaces after showering so that we don’t get buildup (we have really hard water). 

Sink (once a week)

• I remove everything from the sink area & then wet it down. Then I sprinkle Bon Ami on all of the surfaces & scrub with a scrubby sponge & rinse.

Floors (once a week)

• I remove everything from the ground—the rugs, garbage bin, step stool, etc. & then give everything a good sweeping. I use the floor cleaner mixture in a bucket, along with 1-2 clean rags. I dip the rag into the cleaner, ring it out, & get on my hands & knees & scrub away. I actually enjoy this in a weird therapeutic kind of way (invest in some nice rubber gloves). I use a fresh rag when I need more water to keep the water clean (I used to use one rag per room, but would need to fill up the water bucket several times because it got dirty). 
• I wash the rugs as needed 

Towels (once a week)

• I wash our hand towels & bath towels along with the kitchen laundry. I wash them all on hot & then put white vinegar in the rinse cycle to keep them from getting musty. In the summer, I dry them for about 20 minutes in the dryer & then stick them on the clothes rack outside to finish drying. In the winter, I dry them all the way inside. 
• I usually do 5 loads of laundry a week- 1 of towels, 1 of clothing, & 3 of our cloth diapers. If you are interested in reading about how to wash cloth diapers, check out my post about that here.

Bedroom Cleaning

Sheets (once a month)

• Some people really are good about washing their sheets more than once a month… I’ve never been one of those people. Sure, I love fresh sheets, but I find it to be exhausting to strip the bed, wash everything & then put it all back together. At any rate, I get to it once a month. I take off the douvet cover, pillow cases, sheets, & mattress cover & wash them all on the bedding cycle on our washer. 

Pillows (every 3-4 months)

• Use a gentle detergent that is ideally scent-free (we use Country Save). Press out as much air as possible before loading it into the washer. For top load washers, do 2 at a time for balance (front load washers don’t have an agitator so you can do 1-2 per load). Set your machine to run a full cycle using warm water. Run a second spin cycle to help eliminate excess moisture. By removing excess moisture, you’ll help reduce mold growth and any unpleasant odors from developing. To dry, take 2 tennis balls & split them into 2 socks. Tie the socks to secure the tennis balls in place. The tennis balls will help beat out excess moisture while putting them in socks will prevent the smell & color of the tennis ball from transferring to your pillows. Put the pillows in the dryer using a low heat setting. It may take a few cycles to fully dry the pillows. Once dry, take a deep smell of the pillow to test if there’s still moisture in the pillow. If it’s warm & sunny enough outside, you can even just set them out in the sun for a few hours. 

Mattress (every 3-4 months)

• I do wash our mattress cover every month when I wash the sheets, but just about every 3-4 months, I actually sprinkle some baking soda, mixed with a few drops of lavender essential oil, onto the mattress itself. I usually let it sit for about an hour & then I vacuum it up. 

Dusting (once a week)

• I most often use a micro-fiber cloth & dry dust all of the surfaces in our bedroom. Occasionally I might use a product like Ecosense. 

Floors (once a week)

• I remove everything from the ground—the rugs, garbage bin, etc. & then give everything a good sweeping. I use the floor cleaner mixture in a bucket, along with 1-2 clean rags. I dip the rag into the cleaner, ring it out, & get on my hands & knees & scrub away. I actually enjoy this in a weird therapeutic kind of way (invest in some nice rubber gloves). I use a fresh rag when I need more water to keep the water clean (I used to use one rag per room, but would need to fill up the water bucket several times because it got dirty). Our bedroom floors are hardwood, so I just make sure that the rags are rung out very well & just lightly damp before washing the floor. 
• I wash the rugs as needed. 

Thank you for checking out this series on creating clean! I hope that you have found it to be at least a little bit helpful. Please, if you have any questions or comments, leave them in the comment section below! And if you've missed any of the previous posts, check them out:

• Creating Clean #1: Planning & Cleaning Recipes
• Creating Clean #2: Kitchen Organization
• Creating Clean #3: Kitchen Cleaning

*Most of my cleaning methods have come from the book, "Organic Housekeeping" by Ellen Sandbeck (an incredible resource from a lovely Duluth native!), but also from these fine sources:

• Crafty Little Gnome
• Make It Do
• One Good Thing By Jillee
• How To Clean Stuff
• Behind The Studio
• Clean My Space