The Ultimate House Cleaning Checklist for Taming the Chaos

House Cleaning Checklist: How to Plan A Major Clean Out

Everyone loves living in an orderly, spotless, and sparkling home, but maintaining it in this speckless state — not as much. House cleaning isn’t a fun chore and most want to get done with it fast. If that sounds like you, this post explains how to get done with house cleaning faster with the help of a checklist.

Why Do You Need a House Cleaning Checklist?

A house cleaning checklist comes in handy whenever you want to engage others in this chore — kids, roommates, or a professional cleaner. By itemizing all cleaning tasks that need to be done, you can assign individual chores without worrying that you’ll miss something.

Also, a house cleaning checklist keeps you productive. Crossing individual items from your list can feel more satisfying than thinking about the vague task of “cleaning the entire house”. Science found that our brain produces extra dopamine (happiness hormone) whenever we experience small amounts of success. That’s why crossing out an item on your to-do list feels satisfying and motivates us to keep going.

Finally, a set of checklists can help you track how often you clean different areas of the house and plan your chores accordingly. For example, you can set a rotating cleaning schedule for your shed and garage (less frequent) and add reminders for seasonal window wiping (more frequent!).

Your Deep Cleaning House Checklist

Planning to make every corner of your home squeaky clean (and keep it this way!). Awesome! To avoid missing those hard-to-reach crevices here’s a room-by-room deep cleaning house checklist.

P.S. You can easily adapt it to one of the free house cleaning checklist templates from the above!

Entryway

• Vacuum and mop the floors
• Wipe walls, baseboards, and light switches
• Organize shoes and seasonal clothing
• Clean the door and the doormat
• Organize all clutter on the shelves

Kitchen

• Clean stovetop and the oven
• Clean the dishwasher and wipe the sink
• Organize your fridge, clean the shelves, defrost the freezer
• Wipe all kitchen tables, shelves, and drawers
• Discard all expired or spoiled food from the pantry
• Organize your cutlery and glassware
• Dust all top surfaces
• Clean the dish rag and get new sponges
• Deodorize and degrease the kitchen drain
• Take the trash out
• Vacuum and mop the floor
• Wipe the walls and light switches

Bathroom

• Sanitize your tub and shower
• Scrub your showerhead (or replace it)
• Refresh your shower curtain liner
• Clean the sink and polish all metallic hardware
• Clean the toilet
• Organize personal care products in the drawers
• Clean your makeup brushes and vanity place
• Sort your medicine cabinet
• Wipe the mirror
• Scrub your tiles
• Vacuum and mop the floors

Bedroom(s)

• Change your sheets
• Organize your clothes — drawers and wardrobe
• Discard, sell, or donate unworn clothes
• Dust and polish all furniture
• Deodorize and vacuum the carpets
• Flip your mattress
• Dust blinds, curtain rods, and window sills
• Vacuum and mop the floors
• Clean your rugs or carpets from stains
• Wipe baseboards

Living Room

• Dust/polish all wooden furniture
• Deep clean sofa and armchairs
• Wash all throw blankets and pillows
• Dust blinds, curtain rods, and window sills
• Clean the lamp shades
• Dust and wipe all surfaces and electronics
• Sanitize remote controls
• Declutter your coffee table and side tables
• Throw away old newspapers and magazines
• Clean or vacuum curtains
• Mop or vacuum floors, clean your rugs

Kids’ Playroom

• Sanitize all plastic toys with soap or kid-friendly washing liquid
• Wash stuffed animals and plush toys
• Organize all toy drawers, discard broken toys
• Donate unused toys
• Mop or vacuum floors, clean the rugs

Home Office

• Wipe all electronics
• Organize your papers and gadgets
• Wipe the table and other surfaces
• Dust all furniture
• Sanitize keyboard and mouse
• Recycle unneeded paperwork

Other Must-Dos!

• Check your AC and order cleaning
• Replace light bulbs
• Wipe door handles and light switches
• Test smoke alarm
• Change batteries in all devices
• Clean air vents/registers

That’s just a sample house cleaning checklist to give you some inspiration for customizing your house cleaning checklist using one of the above templates!