...It's Deep Cleaning Time, Again!

If you haven't read my blog article with the Super Clean lists, you might want to start there. If you have, you may be wondering the same thing another friend asked me this week. "Coach, what do you mean by Deep Clean? If you've been using the Super Clean lists all this time, what's left to clean?"

Hmmm...exactly! That's the problem! Everybody has stopped following the charts closely. They sort of, took a holiday. Plus, all the Christmas decorations leave behind quite a mess. Ask my friend Amy about glitter. On top of ribbon that leaves behind glitter residue, there are all those tree and garland needles, even artificial trees leave them, although not as many.

So this week, I didn't just super clean, I deep cleaned or as I told my sister Robin, I "Mama Carol" cleaned. My Mom taught me the power of three. I'm not sure that's what she called it, but since I love the number three, somehow it always stuck in my head that way. When you deep clean, you need to remember it is a three step process.

1. Remove the loose dirt.
2. Remove the grime or spots.
3. Make it shine.

How do you play this out on the "cleaning field"? It's going to depend on what you are cleaning. Let's start with the rooms I've gotten finished this week - my main living areas and bedrooms. Then in a later blog, I will come back to the bathrooms and the kitchen.

Wood furniture - 1. dust rag; 2. wood soap; 3. wood polish. Just wood soap won't do it. And if you don't dust it first, then you are just wiping the crud around for it to dry on and stick to it.

Glass table tops, glass doors or windows - 1. dust rag; 2. glass cleaner; 3. go back over the area with a dry paper towel. Be sure to look for streaks and in the corners. Windows will need the insides vacuumed out as well, and either the wood or plastic cleaned.

Wrought iron or stainless steel - 1. dust rag; 2. surface cleaner; 3. stainless steel polish. The polish makes all the difference in the world. But you have to use the surface cleaner first. If you use just the polish, you will still have the grime spots. If you only use the surface cleaner, you will be left with streaks.

Laminate floors - 1. broom and dust pan; 2. Swiffer sweeper; 3. Swiffer Wood floor mop. Obviously, you can use your own favorite product but these are mine. But the point is that you first need the broom to get up the big pieces, the sweeper for the silt and in this case glitter, and then the mop for the shine.

Carpet and oriental rugs - 1. vacuum; 2. spot treat; 3. steam clean.

Couches and chairs - 1. vacuum; 2. spot treat; 3. steam clean.

There are plenty of other things you have that are a mixture of these materials, but I am sure you are getting the idea, right? So remember, if you are going to spend your valuable time cleaning, make sure that when you are finished it looks like you cleaned!

Stay tuned for more!