Two weeks of drudgery have led up to this, the Holy Grail of cleaning:  the refrigerator.  Once it’s finished, you will know that you have well and truly conquered your house.  Start with the freezer, if you have one.  If it’s frost-free (and it probably is), just clean out old, expired food and wipe down [...]

At last we face it.  Our nemesis.  The room we dread, yet can’t live without.  Today we tackle the kitchen.  As always, begin with the windows, then the walls and baseboards.  Wipe down fronts of cabinets and appliances.  Don’t you wish you had wiped up that raspberry jam before it dried on? Clear everything off [...]

The dining room is often the hub of the home.  When you’re not using the table for meals, it probably becomes a homework station, a card table, a puzzle board, a puppet theater, or a fort.  Today’s challenge is to keep the dining room sparkling and ready to be whatever you need it to be. First, wash the windows and [...]

The “et cetera” day.  This is the day we’re taking care of all those extra rooms that haven’t already been covered.  Except dining/kitchen — those are coming, much to everyone’s joy.  So if you have an office, den, craft room, sewing room, media room, storage room, et cetera (see?), this is for you. There’s not [...]

Some of us retreat to our bedrooms to relax and shut out the world.  But is it to protect us from the world, or to protect the world from our bedrooms?  After all, your visitors don’t need to know that your bedroom is also the place where the kids dump their toys, the mail is overflowing the [...]

Bathrooms are gross.  Let’s just say it.  All sorts of revolting things go on in there, water gets splashed, soap gets scummed.  Well, no more!  Okay, those things will all still happen, but you won’t know it by the time we’re done with today’s challenge. Start by removing everything from the bathroom that’s not nailed [...]

Today we’re going to spruce up the room that so often gets neglected, buried under mountains of clothes, covered with dust and lint, and nearly universally hated by its owners.  Nobody likes spending time in the laundry room, because let’s face it, that means you’re doing laundry.  No fun.  But a clean, fresh room will [...]

We’re cleaning the hallways and stairs today.  That’s it.  I told you this would be an easier challenge!  Dust and/or wipe down anything you have hanging on the walls, including that family picture that’s so old it’s missing three of your children.  Wipe down the walls and wash the baseboards. Remove all unintentional kid art. Vacuum [...]

Today we’re finishing our main living areas.  This means the next guest who walks through the door will be greeted with a fresh-smelling, scrubbed and polished living room.  How often does that happen?  Enjoy it while it lasts, because the kids are eventually going to come home from school. There are several steps to this [...]

  Having trouble snooping on the neighbors lately?  It’s probably your dingy windows.  Today we’re going to focus on all of the windows in the main living areas.  This means living room, family room, great room, kitchen, dining room — all of the main shared areas of the house. First, concentrate on the window coverings.  [...]