Bathroom Cleaning Routine

Friday is bathroom cleaning day in the Claiborne household.

The following tasks are typically done before leaving for work:

1. Clean the inside of all toilets with toilet bowl cleaner
2. Use sanitizing wipes to wipe down the handles, lids, seat, exterior bowls, tanks and lastly the toilet base. NOTE:  Discard dirty wipes frequently when cleaning bathrooms. 
3. Wipe off and/or dust the toilet paper roll hanger and any bathroom towel hangers

The following tasks are completed Friday evenings:

1. Remove non-essential items from counter tops and return them to their designated place
2. Wipe down counter tops, faucets and sinks with multi surface cleaner
3. Clean bathroom mirrors with glass cleaner
4. Clean tubs and showers with an appropriate cleanser for your tub/shower

Cleaning tips:

• I like to keep a minimalist counter top - only the essentials and a couple of decorative items. Non-essentials kept on counters require extra time and effort to clean around.  
• If you don't have enough drawer space to store items, consider a pretty glass or mirrored tray, which will keep items together and allow for easy removal during cleaning.

• Our shower is fiberglass and very hard to clean.  I've tried various cleaning products over the years (if any of you have a good tip let me know).  So far, the best solution I've found (via a Pinterest post) is to use fume free Easy Off Oven Cleaner. You spray it on, let it sit 10 minutes and then wipe clean

Favorite bathroom cleaning products:

• Bar Keepers friend
• Windex
• Home and Planet Multi Surface Cleaner - rose scented
• Lysol toilet bowl cleaner
• Lysol wipes

When the above tasks are completed on Friday, the only thing left to do is sweep/vacuum and mop the bathrooms.  In our household, vacuuming and mopping are done on Saturday morning.

I hope these tips help you to keep your bathroom cleaning routine under control.  What suggestions do you have for keeping your bathrooms clean and organized?  Share your ideas in the comments!

Laundry Routine

Laundry is one of those tasks that can get overwhelming if you don't stay on top of it. This simple method is a combination of my Mom and my Mother-in law's routine.


Disclaimer: I'm sure the clothing manufacturers would be "horrified" at my simplistic method! However, I haven't turned our tighty-whities pink in several years, so what I'm doing seems to be working.

LOADS:

The basic laundry at the Claiborne household consists of 3 different types of loads:

1. Darks/Colors - jeans, dark colored shirts, any dark colored underwear, socks or Pj's (could include bed sheets, based on color)
2. Whites/lights - socks, underwear or any other white or light colored clothing  (could include bed sheets as well, based on color)
3. Towels - towels, wash cloths, dust rags, small bathroom and kitchen rugs, etc.  NOTE: I also throw the more rugged flannel sheets into the towel category.

Exceptions: A new silky/delicate blouse or new jeans that  might "bleed" at the first wash should be washed  separately as well as clothing for babies.  Our washer has a cycle called "hand wash" that works well for those items. When in doubt, follow the manufacturer's recommendations.

PRE-SORTING:

Laundry is pre-sorted in our household.  A basket in the closet contains darks/colors and a basket in the linen closet contains whites.  Towels are kept on hooks or in a separate basket until ready to wash.

WASH SCHEDULE:

EVERY day...at least one load of laundry is done - dependent on which basket (from the pre-sorted items above) is the most full.

• Work days -  if the whites or towels basket is the most full,  the load is started when I first get up.  These items are then dried before leaving for work.  The darks/colors will require more attention in the hanging and drying process, so always do them at  night when you have more time.

• Saturdays - We change the sheets on our beds and immediately wash them - this load is in addition to the daily load.

DRYING:

• Towels - Folded and put away - our washer and dryer tops are kept clear so they can be used as a folding station.  Everything is folded there and put away.  
  
• Whites - Dried, folded and put away straight out of the dryer - again fold them in the utility room and put them away.
• Sheets -  Dried and immediately removed while warm to decrease wrinkling - fold and put them away.  NOTE:  To fold sheets, I put the fitted sheet, top sheet and 1 pillow case inside the second pillow case - this keeps every set together nicely. (see photo below).
  
• Dark/colors - These are the items that require more care - some items  don't even need to be put in the dryer, such as silky blouses, jeans that you don't want to shrink, dress pants etc. - take those out of the washer and immediately hang them up to dry (our utility room has a closet type rod below the cabinets adjacent to the washer/dryer - we store empty hangers there and hang items that need to drip dry).  Everything else goes in the dryer.  ALERT:  This is where you must pay attention and get these items out of the dryer a few items at a time, hanging  immediately.  This is key to prevent wrinkling.  For example: Take out a couple of items, close dryer door and let remaining items spin on de-wrinkle cycle while you hang up the 2 items and repeat until dryer is empty and everything has been hung up or folded.

COMPLETE THE JOB:

Laundry isn't DONE until everything is put away.

Key points for the laundry routine are:

1. Pre-sort
2. Wash a load every day
3. Take action as soon as the dry cycle is done and "complete" the job by delivering the items to their appropriate location.

I hope this is helpful - if you have any specific questions about our laundry routine, please let me know. 

Special thanks to my "proofreader" - Taylor Claiborne-Calderon.

Household Routines

Reflecting on our 41st wedding anniversary, many memories have come to mind.  There were things we planned for, such as: our wedding day, the birth of Casey after we had been married 5 years, then Taylor's birth almost 6 years later.  There were also many unexpected turns in our journey and things that did NOT go according to plan.

Married at 18, I naively expected to work until we had our first child, then be a stay at home Mom. However, that wasn't in Gods plan for me and I've worked outside the home our entire marriage with only a few weeks off after the birth of each child.

Running our household, as a full time career woman, wife and mother of two relied heavily on organizational skills and performing certain household chores/activities on a set schedule.  The  past year via reading blogs, posts, books etc - I see that many people identify these scheduled activities as  "routines" and that evidently they don't come easily to everyone.

Thinking through the routines relied upon throughout my marriage and the ones adapted over the past 3 years when our empty nest needed to be shared with our 92 year old mother in law -I wondered if sharing what has worked in our home might be helpful to someone for whom those routines haven't yet been learned or established.

As these routines are shared via a series of posts, please feel free to chime in with your tips and ideas.   We all need to help each other throughout this time.  I'm a firm believer that if you make your home as orderly as possible, it helps add an element of peace and calm that we all need right now!

Stay tuned for the first post...  Laundry Routine.



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