15 Minutes to a Clean House

ByLeslie Lambert Posted on

I will never be one of those women with a home that is show-ready 24/7…that just doesn't fit our lifestyle. We live in our house. We play, we eat, we cook, we sleep. We make messes. While I do try to keep up with my daily cleaning schedule to keep everything as presentable as possible, you will rarely walk in during the day to see the house out of the magazine…it's just not realistic.

But, we do all have those times when we need to have a show-ready house as quickly as possible. So, I like to have a plan in place for those times when we find out we're having last-minute guests over. Here's the plan I follow…it might work for a few of you out there too!

Great list of ideas for a last-minute cleaning routine! Broken down into 15 minute or hour intervals.

-If I really don't have a lot of time (I'm talking like 15 minutes to clean), I like to have a mental list of 5 must-do tidying chores. It's a very short list of things that can quickly be done around our house to prepare for guests. These really go a long way towards making my house look presentable! For me, I like to…

  • Load dishes from the sink into the dishwasher
  • Make beds
  • Pick up any toys/clothes/junk from the living area floors
  • Turn on scented wax cube melts
  • Wipe down kitchen counters, tables in living areas
…but I really think these are different for every person. Think about priorities in your home (what's usually the dirtiest, what stands out the most), and make your own mental list!
-If I have a little bit more time, I like to go a little more in-depth with the cleaning. For me, an hour of last-minute cleaning looks like this:
  • Fold any clean laundry…make sure dirty laundry is in hampers
  • Vacuum all floors (including hard surfaces…more on this later)
  • Clean toilets and sinks in the bathrooms
  • Make sure front entry is clear of leaves/pine straw
  • Dust harder-to-reach surfaces in living areas
  • Walk through the house with a cleaning cloth (old burp cloths are awesome for these!) and clean trouble spots (small stains on the walls, messes on surfaces, dusty areas, etc.) with a cleaning solution…I use equal parts water/vinegar and it cleans just about anything!
For quick floor clean-ups, we love having a smaller cordless vacuum to run over the entire house (including hard floors) once. I hate sweeping…always have. So, instead, I like having a portable cordless vacuum, like the Hoover Air™ Cordless Lift Upright Vacuum, to hit trouble areas and clean hard-to-reach places, like below kitchen counters. There's no chance to tripping over a cord in your last-minute running, and Hoover's Cordless line sports an interchangeable battery system with double the capacity of our standard 18-volt lithium Ion batteries to make sure you stay up and running throughout your whole cleaning routine!

We love the Windtunnel 3 technology performance in the Hoover Air™ Cordless Lift Upright Vacuum. The  suction power lifts and removes any extra dirt that would be noticeable to guests. This vacuum really is perfect for those little clean-ups that need quick, last-minute attention!

Find out more about Hoover's line of cordless vacuums (including a hard floor wet cleaner…next on my want list!) at their website, Facebook page, or Pinterest page!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

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