SPRING CLEANING | DIY Household Cleaners | TIPS for a Clean Home

Hello! Today I have a different type of post for you that has actually been requested a few times, my DIY household cleaners! I also thought I would throw in some tips for keeping your home clean. Enjoy!

Make The Beds
The first tip I have for you is to try to make your bed (and your kids’ beds if you have kids) everyday. Walking into a room with a freshly made bed will instantly motivate you to clean other things, and you won’t have to walk past a messy bed all day. It really doesn’t take that long and it looks nice.

Allie makes her own now.

Pick Up Clutter

The next tip is to try and pick up as much as you can before you go to bed. For example, every night when my girls eat dinner, I go around the house and clean up all of the clutter. When we go to bed, there is no clutter left out anywhere, and it makes me happy to wake up to a clean home- I feel like I can sit down and enjoy my coffee without looking at a mess.

Coffee and Teletubbies. Lol.

Clean The Dishes As You Go

It is a good tip to clean the dishes as you use them. I never have a sink full of dishes because I immediately put them into the dishwasher instead of the sink. While cooking, clean the measuring cups, cutting boards and utensils as you go, so that they don’t pileup.

Do One Load of Laundry Every Day (or every other day)

My family of four makes enough dirty clothes and towels for me to be able to do one large load of laundry every other day. One load of laundry isn’t overwhelming, but letting it pile up and having to do two or three loads in one day…no.

Make A Schedule

Think of your chores and try to split them up so that you only have to do one thing per day. Here’s an example.

Monday – Wash all sheets

Tuesday- Clean Toilets

Wednesday – Sweep and Mop

Thursday – Wipe down counters, windows, and tables

Friday – Clean Bathtubs/Showers

This way you won’t spend your entire day cleaning, and everything gets done that week!

Ok, so now that you have some tips, here are my DIY household cleaners that I think you will love.

All of these are non-toxic, and pretty gosh darn natural.

You can grab empty spray bottles from the dollar store, Walmart, or your local grocery store for just a few bucks.

My first cleaner is kind of similar to Febreeze, it’s a Fabric Refresher. We have two small dogs that live inside our house, and they don’t shed, but they are dogs, and well, I don’t want my house smelling like a dog- so I came up with this concoction.

FABRIC REFRESHER

1/2 cup vinegar
5 drops lavender essential oil
1 tbsp baking soda
2 cups water

Mix your vinegar and oil drops together in the bottle, and SLOWLY add your baking soda. After it stops bubbling, add your water. The vinegar disinfects, while the baking soda removes smells, and the lavender smells pretty. I usually will spray this on my couch once a week since my pups are couch potatoes and lay around all day long. It totally takes away the doggy smell.

Next, I have a lovely toilet cleaner. My house is in the country and we have a septic tank – you aren’t supposed to use bleach down any drain, so I came up with an alternative that cleans just as good, without any harsh chemicals.

Toilet Cleaner

2 cups vinegar
1 1/2 cups Borax
5 drops lemon essential oil
5 drops peppermint essential oil

The vinegar disinfects, while the Borax works as an abrasive to remove limescale and mold, and the essential oils make it smell nice.

Lastly, I have a counter or “all purpose” type of cleaner. I have granite counters in the kitchen, and marble in the bathrooms and laundry room. Vinegar and lemon are too abrasive to use on these surfaces, so here is what works amazingly for my countertops.

Counter Cleaner