Lazy Cleaning Tricks for a Spotless Home

I like a clean home. I feel overwhelmed with clutter and messes. I just don't love to clean my house. I know there are people out there who love to scrub every surface, to spend their free time sorting and organizing every closet and cabinet. I'm just not one of them. 

I was hoping that as my kids got older that maybe I could put them to work doing the stuff I don't like to do, but to be honest, they really aren't that great at cleaning either. Don't get me wrong, they are super great at making messes, but the cleaning up part is their downfall. 

After nearly 20 years of having a home of my own to clean, I've got some lazy cleaning tricks up my sleeve and I'm spilling the secrets today on how you can have a spotless home the lazy way.

Last year, I started working part time outside of the home. Sure, I blog and spend a good chunk of my "free time" {honestly, I don't really know what free time is...I think it's hiding with the unicorns in lala land} writing and maintaining my blog, but with a kid with one foot out the door and onto college, I needed to bring in some income, so I started subbing in my kids school district a few days a week. Nothing like being away from home for eight hours to remind yourself that you really do take care of a whole lot of stuff around the house.   The transition was rough, I'm not going to lie. Everyone thought that I would continue to do all the mundane tasks that I was doing before {apparently clean underwear is important} but with fewer hours in the day. The adorable people that lived here used to tell me that they were out of deodorant and then it would magically appear that afternoon when they got home. Well, that didn't happen once I started working. I had far too much to catch up on when I was home and their lack of personal hygiene items was none of my concern. I did the bulk of the housework and cleaning and people started to notice my lack of attention to our home when the dog fur started rolling around like tumbleweeds in the desert. I told my husband that if I was going to continue to work outside of the home, I either needed a cleaning lady {which really cancelled out the money I was making working} or some help around the house.   So, he went to Costco and bought me a Roomba. Rosie the Roomba is my favorite lazy cleaning trick. Sure it's a chunk of change to drop out of pocket, but I never know how much of a difference just having clean floors makes. Rosie is programmed to go off every morning when we leave and when we get home, the floors are nice and clean. My husband taught our youngest son how to clean Rosie's brushes and wheels {a must especially with the amount of dog hair from our big furry dog} and so once a week or so, Owen does a little Rosie maintenance. I used to vacuum every single day because of the messes three kids and a dog bring to a home, but now, I am only using my big vacuum once a week. I'm saving at least four hours each week! 

When we were first married, we lived in apartments just outside of campus. They had this not so lovely white linoleum that showed every piece of dirt. I scrubbed that linoleum several times a week. This lazy cleaning trick is all about materials. Once we moved into our first home we had hardwood floors in most of our downstairs. Those floors don't show a thing! Our current home has these hand scraped wood floors that hide even more. So while it's not super economical, I have found that just by having a different floor covering, I have saved hundreds of hours cleaning. I steam mop our floors once a month and that's only when I remember.

Sure, I spot clean them, but the floors really don't need cleaned more often. It's not like we are eating off of them! I love my HomeRight Steam Machine plus. My kids think this steam cleaner is a toy so they often fight over using it to clean with. The blue part of the steamer pops off to make a handheld steamer that I can use to clean just about any surface. I use it to deep clean a few times a year. If I am feeling super ambitious, I use to to steam just about any surface including pillows, the counter tops, the blinds and other hard to reach areas. The steam does the hard part of the cleaning, I just follow it up by wiping the area down. Let the machine do the work! Talk about lazy! I hear they are discontinuing this product, so if you want to order it, do it soon or you are going to miss out.

I don't use a lot of chemicals in my house. I use vinegar for cleaning most things. Remember those adorable kids I told you that live here? Well, they are pros at making messes. They eat a lot and they make a lot of their own food. All three of them have mastered the microwave. I hate opening up the microwave and finding splattered food all over, but it happens. And when it does, I put a small bowl of vinegar in the microwave and cook it on high for a few minutes. The steam cleans on all that baked on crud and I can easily wipe it off. What took hours of scrubbing before, takes seconds.

Speaking of cleaning chemicals, I keep all of my cleaning items together in a bucket. That way I have everything that I need in one place. I just grab for it and go. It has a roll of paper towels, toilet bowl cleaner, window cleaner, vinegar in a spray bottle, Pledge and some disinfecting wipes. Can we stop for two seconds and talk about my love of Pledge? I started using it years ago on my stainless steel since the stainless steel cleaner was so expensive.  It's so much cheaper and it does double duty, so it's a must have in my mind. Just be careful of over spray on hardwood floors. It makes them more slippery than snot! Another lazy housekeeper trick is to have products that do more than one thing. I only want to keep around cleaning products that are going to cut my time cleaning and searching or switching from one product to another just isn't cutting my time. Again, another reason why the steam machine has made the cut.  I want to hear how you cut your time cleaning. Any tips you can share with me?  disclaimer: this post may contain affiliate links. I may have received compensation or free product from one or more item. Trust me though, I never write about something I don't love.