What To Do If Your House Is Messy and You’re Ready To Get It Clean Once and For All!

This post is specifically for those of you who feel like you are drowning in a dirty home and feeling like you don’t know where to start.

It can be easy to have seasons of life happen where you fall behind on housework and before you know it, you look around and know you have hours of work ahead of you to get it cleaned.

Take a deep breath and get ready to whip your house back into shape!

You CAN Get Your House Clean Again

First, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by a dirty house, just know you CAN correct it, but it’s going to take determination and some time. I promise you if you stick to it though and get it clean your whole family will feel better. It’s so nice to come home to a clean home!

Set Aside Some Time

When I am feeling like our home needs a deep cleaning, I clear our schedule except for church and medical appointments. If you have children and they are going to miss playdates or other fun things, this will only encourage them to help you to get it completed faster.

I know it’s not fun to miss out on things you want to do, but sometimes it just has to be done.

We teach our kids, we work first, and then we play. God created everything in 6 days and then on the 7th day he rested. Not the other way around. So, put in the hard work first, and then reward yourself with rest.

Set the Mood

I always work better if I put on some music to listen to or a good audiobook.

Gather Your Supplies

Gather up all the supplies you can think of that you’ll need before you get started so you don’t have to keep leaving the room to get things you need. Don’t forget to grab a trashbag!

Start One Room at a Time

When you need to deep clean your home, take it one room at a time. Start with a smaller room (or cleaner room) so you will have the satisfaction of having one totally clean room sooner. It will help motivate you to move on to the next room.

Clean the room top to bottom. I mean everything. Windows, baseboards, wipe walls, dust for cobwebs, purge things out that you no longer use, want, or are broken.

Purge

I said it above but this one needs repeated. While you are cleaning, purge! If toys are broken, throw them away. If you haven’t used an item in a while, either donate it, list it for sale on Marketplace (although I only recommend this for items you might make $30 or more off of), or throw it away. Don’t keep hanging onto things you don’t need or want.

If you’re unable to keep your house clean, I can nearly guarantee you that you have items you need to purge! With fewer items, there will be less clutter.

If you have children and lots of toys that make big messes, either purge some of them out of package some up and rotate them.

Once You Have Cleaned a Room, Set Up a System to Keep It Clean

You can use this index card system (I highly recommend it!) or come up with your own, but no matter what you decide to do, put something in place to keep that room clean!

Read over my blog post about maintaining a clean home for all of my tips. If you have children, get them involved with keeping it clean.

Just whatever you do, don’t neglect your clean and organized rooms while you move onto the other rooms in your home that need work.

Move on to the Next Room

Once you have one room totally cleaned, move onto the next room. Keep tackling your home room by room until it’s done. This will likely take you a few days, maybe even a few weeks depending on the size of your home, but don’t give up!

As you go along it may take you longer to complete a room because you will also now be working to maintain the rooms you have already cleaned, but don’t let that discourage you from finishing your whole house!

Maintain Your House

Once your house is clean do whatever it takes to maintain it that way! If your house has gotten really messy, can I gently tell you that that means you definitely need some sort of system in place? You do. It will help you, I promise! You don’t have to use my system but you should figure out one that works for you!

Additional Helpful Posts

Since many of you reading this likely have children or grandchildren, check out this post about toy organization to help you tackle the toy mess if your home. I also have a post about shoe organization tips.