ANNUAL CLEANING ROUTINE

Here are eight tasks you must include in your annual cleaning routine. This is the fifth and final part of my series about 35 cleaning tasks you must do around your home throughout the year.

For your free weekly cleaning schedule chart which includes all 35 cleaning tasks made doable on a weekly basis, click here!

For each of the tasks below, you can choose one day a month to do one or two of these tasks. I demonstrate how to schedule these tasks in a video here.

Annual Cleaning Routine Task #1

Deep Clean Window Treatments

Once a year, you will want to take down your curtains and sheers and launder them according to the care instructions provided by the manufacturer. Remember, one of our monthly cleaning tasks here is to dust our window treatments and clean our window sills. Once a year is when you will give your window treatments a deep clean by washing and drying them.

Annual Cleaning Routine Task #2

Deep Clean Carpets & Upholstery

Hiring professional cleaners to deep clean your carpets and upholstery can be an excellent investment on an annual basis. For us do-it-yourselfers, a carpet shampooer can be a worthwhile investment whether you purchase one to keep at home or rent from your local grocery or hardware store.

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Contrary to popular belief, in general, you don’t need as much cleaning product as one may think, especially when it comes to cleaning carpets. When too much cleaning solution is used on carpets, it can leave behind a residue that attracts dirt and leaves your rugs and carpets worse than when they started. So, to properly clean your rugs and carpets and prevent dirt from building up in the future, here are simple steps to getting your rugs and carpet cleaned:

1. Vacuum your rugs and carpets thoroughly. If you have a beater-bar function on your vacuum, you can flip your rugs and beat the dirt out. You can also go old school and hang your rugs outside and beat them with a bat or broom stick. This is only necessary on higher pile rugs. Low-pile rugs are fine with a thorough vacuuming.
2. If your rugs and carpet aren’t too visibly dirty, you can simply fill your carpet cleaning machine with hot water. Spray the floor in the forward motion once. If your rugs and carpet are visibly dirty, you can add one or multiple scoops of OxiClean depending on how dirty your rugs and carpet are.
3. Whether you use just hot water or add OxiClean, you will suction up the water in the backward motion multiple times until you’ve picked up as much water as possible.
4. If you did use OxiClean, you will fill your carpet cleaning machine again with hot water only, and repeat steps 2 and 3.
5. Allow your floors to dry completely before replacing any furniture on top.

If you do not hire a professional or use a carpet shampooer, you can do this to treat stains immediately as they happen or do an overall surface clean once a year:

1. Simply fill a bowl with hot water (add OxiClean for particularly dirty rugs and carpets) and use an iron handle brush to scrub the surface of your rugs and carpets. You will want to use as little of the solution as possible to prevent oversaturating the rugs and carpet.
2. If you do use OxiClean, be sure to follow up with a bowl of just hot water and an iron handle brush to “rinse” the OxiClean. Again, you will use as little water as possible to prevent oversaturating the rugs and carpet.
3. Press the rugs and carpet dry with towels.
4. Allow to air dry completely before replacing furniture.

Annual Cleaning Routine Task #3

Deep Clean Vents

Once a year, you will want to deep clean your HVAC or heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system. Hiring a professional to do this task is an excellent investment to do this safely and correctly. To start and evaluate your air ducts, you can do the following:

1. Grab a detail cleaning brush or old toothbrush. Also, grab your vacuum and a detail attachment.
2. Go to all the vents around your home for your heating and air conditioning as well as the exhaust fans in your bathrooms. If you can, safely remove your vent covers with a screwdriver.
3. Vacuum out what you are able to reach. If you find that your vents are quite dirty, you will need to call a professional to clean your ducts. Do not attempt to do this yourself as this requires tools that are not available to the average consumer.
4. After cleaning what you can from inside the vent, revert back to your vent covers. While brushing the dust off of these vent covers with your detail brush, simultaneously vacuum the loosened dust. If this is difficult to do simultaneously, simply brush the dust loose first and then follow up with your vacuum.
5. Grab an all-purpose cleaner and a microfiber cleaning cloth. Instead of spraying the vents directly, spray your cleaning cloth and then wipe down your vents.
6. Replace your vent covers if you have removed them.

Annual Cleaning Routine Task #4

Scrub Outdoor Furniture

Depending on the material your outdoor furniture is made of, you will want to follow the manufacturer’s instructions on how to properly clean your outdoor furniture. In general, for most surfaces, you can use a little dish soap in a bucket of water and a sponge and/or an iron handle brush to deep clean your outdoor furniture. Then, throughout the seasons that you use your outdoor furniture, you will simply give everything a quick wipe down before taking a seat. And, during the seasons that you don’t use your outdoor furniture, you will store any removable cushions away from the elements or protect your furniture with covers.

Annual Cleaning Routine Task #5

Have a Garage Sale

Depending on when you are reading this, we may need to continue to practice safe social-distancing. So, to sell your items safely, I share how to do so here. In that case, you will sell your items through apps like OfferUp and LetGo and not have a garage sale.

Meanwhile, you will have collected your purge piles that you accumulated during your quarterly cleaning tasks here. Hopefully, you have collected your items in a location in your house that your household does not access frequently so these items don’t come creeping back into your home. When it is safe to do so, you can have a garage sale. I share all about how to organize a successful garage sale here.

After your garage sale, this is the perfect time to gather everything that hasn’t sold and drop it off at your nearest donation center. Do not even think about keeping these items to sell again. You will likely go a whole year with these items taking up valuable real estate in your home. I am telling you … you will feel SO GOOD after you remove the clutter from your home. So, drop off those donations, immediately!

Annual Cleaning Routine Task #6

Deep Clean Behind Large Appliances

First, be careful! I don’t suggest moving the refrigerator yourself and injuring yourself and/or damaging your appliance. Be sure you have help and carefully nudge your refrigerator, oven, and any other appliances you are able to move away from the wall. You will need enough space to clean the back of the appliance and the walls around and underneath.

1. Vacuum dust and debris from the back of your appliances and the walls and floors surrounding it.
2. Spray degreaser over the walls and floor being careful not to get any of the solution on the outlets or plugs.
3. Fill a bowl with hot water and scrub the walls and floor with a sponge or iron handle brush.
4. Rinse the areas by using a sponge dipped in hot water.
5. Soak up excess water by wiping up the walls and floor with the sponge and wringing out the sponge into an empty bowl.
6. Dry the walls and floor thoroughly before replacing your appliances.

Annual Cleaning Routine Task #7

Drop Off Special Recycling

Throughout the year, hopefully, you are recycling what you can regularly. It is important to know that some items cannot be placed in the regular recycling bin or dropped off at a standard recycling center.

Electronics like computers, for example, must be brought to specialized recycling locations. Also, baby items, like car seats must be brought to specialized recycling locations as well. Did you know that car seats expire? I believe it has to do with recall procedures. After a certain period of time, recalls are probably no longer tracked on older models of baby gear.

In general, for anything that your regular recycling center won’t take, you will simply look up “where to recycle [type item here]” and find your nearest recycling center that accepts those items. There is no need to hold on to items that are obsolete. So, free yourself from the clutter and get rid of these items at least once year. And, please do so as ecologically-friendly as possible by following proper recycling procedures.

Annual Cleaning Routine Task #8

Clean Out the Attic & Basement

Depending on how cluttered your attic and basement are, I understand that this may be a daunting task. I have free organizing guidelines for you in my freebie library here. In this case, I am referring to an attic and basement that isn’t used as a regular living area but, rather, a storage-type area.

For those who can still easily access your attic and basement, once a year, you will simply tidy up all the things that may have accumulated in these spaces. Then, give everything a good cleaning:

1. To remove accumulated dust, work from top to bottom. Clear out each shelf or nook, one at a time.
2. Start by dry dusting with a soft cleaning brush or handheld broom for smaller items and large broom for larger items.
3. Grab your all-purpose cleaner and a microfiber cleaning cloth. Wipe down your shelves.
4. Wipe down your items before replacing them onto the shelves.
5. If you have shop vac, vacuum your floors being sure to use any attachments to get into any tight corners. A regular vacuum will suffice for moderately dusty areas if you don’t have a shop vac.

And, for those who can’t easily access their attic and basement, you can decide to take an hour or a day as often as you are able and get to sorting. Again, you can find my free organizing resources here. You can choose to sort one section of your attic or basement at a time or one category of items at a time. No matter how little you get done during each session, it will eventually add up and you will be able to easily access these areas again!

All my homemade cleaning product recipes can be found here and my favorite cleaning tools here.

Remember, you can choose one day a month to do one or two of these eight tasks.

I share all 35 cleaning tasks in a video here.

Be sure to grab your free weekly cleaning schedule chart which includes all 35 cleaning tasks made doable on a weekly basis here!

Happy Cleaning!