This post is sponsored by Pine-Sol® Clean & Disinfect with Pine-Sol®: The Powerful Scent of Clean.” I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective, but the content is all my own.
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Tomorrow marks the official beginning of Spring!  Along with the beautiful weather {and currently some seasonal allergies}, spring brings with it a sudden urge to clean the house.
My two wonderful kiddos, H and E, bring with them messes both big and small.  I’m sure when you see these darling faces

you are thinking that there is no way they could make big messes at all.  It is the angelic vibe they give off.  It’s all a ruse though because they are definitely capable of destroying a house in no time flat.  Want some evidence?

My floor on a good day post snack time.

The playroom after some fun play time!

Of course, there are bigger messes in my house that the kids have nothing to do with.
Clutter is probably the biggest one followed by crumbs and dust being everywhere.  I’m sure I’ve mentioned my inability to handle clutter before.  I think that stems from coming out of a household that, while extremely loving a supportive, was not always the neatest on the block.  They say you either follow in your parents’ footsteps or go running the opposite direction.  I’m running from the clutter gene as fast as I can.
All of the cleaning and organizing in our house typically gets categorized into three levels.

Level one can be handled with the quick spray and wipe of a surface or requires just a few minutes to put everything back in the right place.  We get A LOT of level one messes and, therefore, I do a lot of level one cleaning.  On most evenings, after the dishes are in the dishwasher, I like to come around and wipe down all the kitchen counters and the kitchen table.  I usually pull out the mini-vacuum and do a quick run around the kitchen too.  If the peninsula in our kitchen has gotten piled up with stuff, I’ll do a quick sort and put as much as I can in the right place.
In the spring, we keep our windows open most days.  This lets in a fair amount of pollen.  About two times a week, I finally get annoyed with it being on my table tops.  So, I grab a dust cloth and wipe it up.

That view of our playroom is so bad that it makes it into level two.  Level two for me means that I can’t get it cleaned up in under 15 minutes.  Our playroom has definitely been much worse but this would probably take me over half an hour at the bare minimum to put everything back where it belongs.  E tends to put many of the toys in his mouth so I usually try to do a quick wipe down of the ones I know he has spent time with before putting them away too.  This of course adds to the time it takes to complete a cleaning task BUT it makes me feel so much better about him going in to play with them again.
Toddlers are exposed to enough germs everywhere else so I try to clean his things a little more thoroughly to ensure I can control his contact with germs as much as possible in the house.

Yeah, that nastiness definitely falls into level three.  Super gross and in a place that is full of germs!  Can you believe that the stuff you see in that picture is part of a toilet that gets a professional cleaning every two weeks and really only gets used one to three times per day?  Yuck, right?  While this kind of dirty might not require a lot of time to clean, I put it in level three because I think it is pretty gross and, being part of the toilet, requires a really deep clean.

So, now that it is spring {or almost there}, I am planning our semi-annual BIG clean.  This encompasses all the stuff above plus some stuff that just doesn’t get done a regular basis due to time constraints like outdoor windows, the front door and baseboards.  I’m not a jump in and clean right away person though.  There are steps to take before the actual cleaning begins so that, when I finally get to cleaning, I can do it really well {bye, bye germs and dirt!} but also really efficiently.
Step 1:
Make a plan.
I write down everything I want to clean and a general order in which I plan to clean them.  It is always a multi-day event so I usually break things out by day too.

Step 2:
Supply List.
Using my plan, I make a list of the cleaning supplies I know I will need and then take inventory of what I already have.  A quick trip to the store will help me fill in any gaps.

Step 3:
Organize.
Before I really start cleaning, I make sure everything is in the correct place.  All the toys are put away, clothes are hung up, trash is taken out, etc.

Step 4:
CLEAN!
I’ll spend a weekend plus a few weeknights getting all the things on my list super clean.  Baseboards get washed down, windows get cleaned inside and out, the bathroom grout gets a toothbrush scrub down, and everything in or house is left smelling and feeling extremely clean.
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