How To Simplify Zone Cleaning Lists
Posted on March 23, 2011 by LJ Earnest
Categories: Simplification
Wednesdays are simplicity days at SimpleProductivity blog.
I recently wrote about how I converted my cleaning system from Flylady’s original 5 zones to 13 zones. A reader asked me to share my cleaning lists for the zones. Since I don’t want to get into providing my lists to the world, only to have them not work for others, I thought I would share how I put them together, step by step (the old “teach them to fish” idea).
I decided to pick a room that had lots of detail to it, with standard features. So I will share how I put together my dining room cleaning list.
My Dining Room
My formal dining room is carpeted, and has two open doorways and one window. The window is covered with blinds, then sheer curtains, then the formal curtains. In the room is a wood dining table and six wood chairs with cloth seats. There is a glass curio cabinet in one corner with three shelves containing pottery. There is also a hutch, with glass-inset doors exposing three shelves, and the hutch has two drawers and the bottom shelves are accessed by three wood doors. There is artwork on all four walls; some is glass fronted, others are not. There is a central hanging light fixture in the room, and crown molding near the ceiling. There is also a wood chair rail around the room.
Preparing the List: The Method
When I prepare a cleaning list, I use Don Aslett’s method of working from top to bottom, clockwise around the room. So I stand in the bigger of the two doorways and work around the room. I make multiple passes, first dusting, then cleaning the individual items.
The List
- Dust the cobwebs from the ceiling and corners
- Dust the moulding
- Clean behind hutch
- Dust doorways and chair rail
- Dust behind curio cabinet
- Dust baseboards
- Dust/clean the drapes
- Wash the sheer curtains (1-2 times per year)
- Dust the blinds
- Clean the windows
- Dust the outside of the hutch
- Clean the hutch doors
- Clean the hutch shelves
- Wash the dishes that are not used regularly
- Straighten/purge the hutch drawers
- Straighten the hutch cabinet
- Clean the outside of the curio cabinet
- Dust the inside contents of the curio cabinet
- Clean the glass inside the curio cabinet
- Dust the light fixture
- Polish the top of the table
- Dust the bottom of the table
- Dust the chairs
- Vacuum the chair seats
- Vacuum the floor (including behind the hutch and the curio cabinet — although due to the weight of these items and their anchoring to the wall, this only happens once a year)
- Spot clean the carpeting if needed
The list is not hard to put together as long as I remember to work around the room methodically. When I clean, I also follow the same path, as this keeps the dirt falling downwards, where it will get cleaned up by later passes.
Photo by me and the sysop
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Comments (4)
How often do you clean the dining room following this list? Surely a cleaning this thorough doesn’t need to be done every week, or even every month.
P.S. The link to a previous post in the first paragraph is broken.
I fixed the link. Thanks!
I do this 4 times a year. All my heavy cleaning is rotated on a 13 week schedule, so all areas get cleaned 13 times a year.
That’s not to say that if I saw a need in the room I wouldn’t take care of it.
I also do weekly cleaning that takes care of the hygienic stuff.
Didn’t even know there were separate method’s to dividing up lists, but Don Aslett’s way of doing things looks smart. I guess it’s one thing to make a list and another to actually do what’s on it.
LOL – did Don Aslett clean the rooms, or just come up with the method for his wife?
Thanks LJ. I too was curious how often you cleaned each zone. I have a smaller house, so fewer zones, but more excuses! Thanks for the info and the laugh.