Did you know spring isn’t the only time of year to deep clean. What the what? Really?
Actually, fall can be a great time to deep clean your home and prepare your home both inside and out for the upcoming colder months. Fall is the perfect time to de-clutter all the accumulated junk in your house from spring and summer as well as pull out all your warm clothes and donate everything you didn’t wear, can’t wear or just do not love. The best thing about fall cleaning is that your home is not only prepared for the cooler months, but when the holidays roll around you have already done your deep cleaning. You can relax and enjoy your family time.
The most important reason I am doing a fall cleaning is to prepare my home, vehicle and life for the cooler months. As a single Mom, I am learning that I have to be prepared and taking simple steps now can prevent major catastrophes and annoyances later. I am also learning (slowly lol) that maintaining a house all by myself is a challenge, but totally do-able if I just do a little preparation and organization. I have yet to perfect this feat...but I try to work on it daily. ☺
image via Seasonal Love
Here’s my list of fall cleaning to-do items:
OUTSIDE
- Detailed cleaning of my car’s interior:
Let’s face it, in few months it will be frigid, and the last thing I will want to do is vacuum and detail my car interior. One good scrub and cleaning and she will be good to go for the winter. Well…for a little while anyway.
- Checking my car’s fluids:
Yes I’m almost mid-thirties and still get a lecture from my Dad about checking my car’s oil, anti- freeze and fluid levels. Yep. I get busy and I forget. So, just for my Dad, I’m prioritizing this on my list so I don’t forget. Lol.
- Create a vehicle emergency kit:
I need to invest in battery jumper cables and make an emergency kit for my car that includes water, blankets etc. I drive a lot of miles every other weekend to take Jax to meet his Dad for visitiation. There are a lot of miles and no towns in between. You just never know and I need to be better prepared.
- Organize my studio:
Technically my studio is part of outside maintenance and it’s high-time I finish organizing and decorating it. Not only do I need to get this done so I can start doing photo shoots there, but I also need to organize things like my yard tools, tools and yard care products before winter. This is a BIG one on the list.
- Mow my yard…one more time:
Uggh. My yard is gorgeous…but it’s huge. For a single Mom it can be a daunting extra chore to keep up with. And not that I am not grateful for rain, but it rained a lot this summer. And boy did I grow a forest. I’m going to mow and edge one more time and hopefully that will be the last of yard care for a while. Well other than raking leaves lol. Someday when I make it big…I will have a yard man...and electrolysis. But that's an entirely different post. Ha ha ha! =)
- Check my gutters / store outside furniture / store Jaxon’s summer toys
INSIDE
- Detailed zone cleaning:
My detailed cleaning list will be inspired from Flylady and her zone cleaning. I am changing it up a tad to reflect our needs in our home and will share those with you weekly. Basically I will focus on one zone or area of my home each week to detail clean. By the end of the month I will have detailed cleaned my entire home, but without the stress or pressure of getting it all done at once. 15 minutes a day at the most. Yes…I can do 15 minutes.
- Donate any clothes, shoes and items that Jaxon and I cannot or do not wear or love.
My Mom taught us to put away our clothes seasonally so as I pull out our warm clothes I will go through and see what needs to be culled. Jaxon has grown a lot since last season, so other than his big coat, most likely he can’t wear most of his stored clothes. My Mom just bought him a ton of new/thrifted clothes for winter and he also received a bunch of hand-me-downs from his older cousin, so those need to be organized as well.
- Go through Jaxon’s toys and donate, throw away and organize.
No one tell Jaxon that I will be doing this one. Broken or not, he likes to hang on to everything!☺
I plan to chip away at my list for entire the month of October. On Monday’s I will post my cleaning objectives for that week and what zone/area I am working on as well as a list of items to do for deep cleaning in that area just in case you want to do your own fall cleaning as well. By the time November rolls around, my casa will be sparkling inside and out and ready for not only the holidays but the cold months. That makes this Mamma very happy!!
XoXo,
Tiffany
