The Ultimate Cleaning Checklist (with Extra Tips From a Busy Mama of Two)

Remember all of those times when you said, “if I had more time at home, I would do this ____,” or “my house would be cleaner if I wasn’t so busy!” Well, now’s your chance ;). It might be April Fool’s Day but this is no joke!

This checklist is going to blow your mind. It might come off a little bit intimidating (like that handsome, mysterious guy on that blind date) but the more you get to know it, the more you realize that it’s really not a big deal (and neither was that guy…).

The Only Cleaning Checklist You Will Ever Need

Now that you’ve seen the checklist, let’s get tips from our in-house cleaning connoisseur. Meet Krista (married to our Creative Director Landon). She is a mama of two just trying to navigate life around toys, crumbs, tears, and sometimes sleep :).

Krista’s Top Cleaning Tips

White vinegar and Dawn dish soap are your best friends! Mix that magic in a spray bottle and you can clean your bathroom, kitchen counters, grout, carpet stains, etc. Also, Dawn dish soap and baking soda is the queen of getting hard stains out. Just FYI.

I like to deep clean top to bottom. If I’m deep cleaning the kitchen, I clean the cabinets first, counters, and then the floor. I don’t want to have to sweep twice! If it’s a bedroom, or in my living room, I’ll organize shelving first, and anything that doesn’t belong ends up on the floor in a pile. Everything that belongs downstairs goes in the room it belongs in on the floor, and anything that goes upstairs goes in a basket at the bottom of the stairs. Most of the time I won’t get to put the upstairs basket of stuff away, upstairs is a whole day of work on its own.

It’s a weird way of cleaning, I end up with piles of stuff everywhere that slowly get smaller and smaller, but it’s the only way that works for me. Having a 2-year-old and a 4-month-old, I’d waste too much time running up and down the stairs, or room to room putting things exactly where they go. So stuff gets close, but not put away until I work my way to that room.

A Sneak Peek Into Krista’s Cleaning Schedule

My cleaning schedule is all over the place! The only thing that’s consistent is every evening after the kids are in bed, hubby cleans the kitchen, and I clean the living room. It’s like an archaeological dig, peeling back the layers of my day with a busy toddler. I vacuum on the weekends if I can, but most of the time that’s something that gets pushed back until we’re swimming through crushed graham crackers, and obliterated Nutri-grain bars. Our toddler is obsessed with vacuuming, a 5-minute vacuum turns into an hour-long ordeal… so I avoid vacuuming at all costs even though it’s my favorite chore.

Cleaning with a Toddler and an Infant

Cleaning with a toddler and an infant is borderline impossible, and that’s something I’ve come to accept. Most days I know I won’t be able to get to a chore, and that has to be okay. Sometimes I try and clean when the kids are napping, but if I don’t feel like it, I just don’t clean. When I do feel up to cleaning with my toddler around, I give him a job because he loves being a helper (even though his help is garbage, ha!). I’ll draw with a washable marker all over the fridge, and give him a spray bottle covered in stickers, and a sponge. The other day I opened a package of diapers and threw them all over the room, and gave him a box to put them back in. While he was doing that, I got a load of laundry in the washer.

How Does Krista Keep Track of Her Cleaning Schedule?

I don’t really have a cleaning schedule, and mostly because I feel like I’m cleaning all the time. You can’t tell at all, because cleaning with a toddler is like chasing a tornado with a vacuum cleaner. Whenever I step on something sticky and shake it off just to step on something else sticky, I know it’s time to clean.

There are so many spring cleaning things I want to do, but with what’s going on in the world right now, I’m limited in what I can do. I’ve been itching to do a DIY closet remodel, but I can’t go to Target to load up on baskets, or Home Depot for lumber. In the meantime, I’m taking things down, and putting them back slightly more organized. Not as much as I would like to be doing right now, but it’s what I can do. Especially with a toddler hanging onto my legs!

Thanks, Krista for all of your amazing cleaning tips! The top-down approach is brilliant.

Happy Spring Cleaning to all! Be sure to print off the cleaning checklist so that you can keep your house immaculate. April Fool’s! Who are we kidding, it will maybe last a day :).