How to Clean Your House Fast: 11 Efficient House Cleaning Tips

Everyone hates to clean but everyone loves a clean house. Is there a best way to clean your house fast?

Most novices aren’t sure if they should dust or vacuum first. They wonder whether they should clean the kitchen before the bathroom or vice versa.

Follow this step-by-step guide, based on years of hard-earned experience, to make the most of your time and clean your house fast:

1. Clean the whole house, not one room at time

Cleaning is much more efficient if you pick one task (dusting, vacuuming, mopping) and do the same task in every room in the house, rather than cleaning the kitchen, the bathrooms and then the bedrooms. Doing it that way prevents you from feeling like you’re in an endless cleaning cycle, starting the same task over and over again.

2. Gather all your cleaning tools in a caddy

Whether it’s a caddy, bucket or tote, having everything you need to clean in one portable place makes it much easier to get the job done. You won’t waste time looking for tools while you clean, and don’t have to worry about gathering them before your next go around.

3. Clear the clutter

Before you even start cleaning, go room to room and pick up the clutter. As you pick up each item – magazines, well-read paperbacks, old sneakers – consider whether you should put it away, toss it or donate it.

4. Dust and vacuum

Before you start dusting, make sure ceiling fans are turned off. Concentrate your dusting on the tops of furniture and the undersides of shelves, on handrails, picture frames, knickknacks and TV screens. For hard-to-reach areas, like blinds and upper shelves, tie a microfiber cloth to the end of a mop or broom. Change the sheets in the bedrooms before you vacuum.

5. Wipe mirrors and glass

Use one damp microfiber cloth, followed by one dry cloth in wiping clean all the mirrors and glass surfaces.

6. Disinfect countertops and surface areas

Go through your house and wipe down the hard surfaces – from countertops, appliances and cabinets to doorknobs, light switches, TV remotes and telephones. You should disinfect some of those surfaces, particularly the ones that might deliver germs to people’s fingers and faces. Make a nontoxic disinfection solution by mixing one-fourth to a half cup of white or apple cider vinegar with a cup of water.

7. Focus on tubs, sinks and toilets

Spray cleaner on the kitchen sink then on bathroom sinks, tubs and toilets. Let it sit for a few minutes so the cleaner has time to dissolve dirt and stains. Then return to the kitchen and start scrubbing. Don’t forget to wipe down the inside of the microwave. Clean toilets last.

While in the kitchen, you also want to make sure your garbage disposal is in tip-top shape. If you aren’t sure the best way to clean a garbage disposal, click herefor some useful DIY garbage disposal cleaning tips.

8. Sweep, then mop

Sweep the kitchen and bathroom floors. Start mopping from the farthest corner of the room and move backwards towards the doorway (that is, don’t mop yourself into a corner). Rinse the mop every time you complete a 4-by-4-foot area.

9. Keep moving when you vacuum

Don’t worry about getting every nook and cranny when you vacuum. Just keep moving through the house, running the vacuum in every carpeted room in one pass through.

Some tasks don’t need to be done each week. These include waxing the furniture, cleaning the windows, and washing area rugs and bath mats. Inspect these accessories and use your own judgment.

10. Don’t forget to routinely wash your cleaning tools

An often overlooked part of cleaning the house is maintaining your cleaning tools. Using a dirty mop or a vacuum with a full bag is much less effective, and you’ll end up spending more time trying to clean.

11. Make cleaning a group activity

Making cleaning a team effort is one of the best ways to clean a house fast. Schedule a time in advance with your family, and assign tasks to each person. Working together can add some fun to cleaning, and your house will be sparkling in no time.

Now that your home is spotless, it’s time to move onto your car. Check out our expert tips on how to detail your ride with a DIY car wash.

7 Easy Home Storage Hacks

A place for everything and everything in its place is a great maxim, if you have plenty of space. Closets and drawers fill quickly, though. These innovative storage hacks will help you detect and use overlooked corners and surfaces, especially for hard-to-store items.

1. The over-the-door shoe caddy

The inside of doors – the surface you see when you’re inside the room – are blank slates for storing small unbreakable items. An uncannily useful piece of gear is the inexpensive over-the-door shoe caddy, which is a hanging panel of small pockets.

While it’s smart to avoid heavy and breakable items on a moving surface like a door, these caddies can corral a multitude of small things in nearly every room.

• In the bathroom: Store cotton swabs, specialty combs, cotton balls, specialty towels, facecloths, unopened toiletries such as toothbrushes and razors.
• In the hobby or craft room: Store interfacing, patterns, rolls of binding, skeins of yarn, bags of floss, packets of needles and small quilting templates and tools.
• On the back of a pantry door: Store rags, clean towels, plastic grocery bags, specialty cleaning cloths like silver polishing cloths, new sponges, rolled-up placemats, folded cloth napkins,
• On the back of a laundry or utility room door: Store folded clean microfiber floor-mopping pads; feather dusters, dust cloths, mini-blind cleaners, boxes of dryer sheets; specialty ironing supplies such as press cloths.
• On the back of a coat closet door: Store gloves, mittens, earmuffs, small scarves, and winter socks.

2. Slivers of space in the bathroom

Declutter the medicine cabinet by finding a new home for small or rarely used items.

• Slip ring-and-clip curtain rings onto the shower rod and hang small bottles of specialty products, such as shaving cream, inside the shower.
• Install slide-out drawers beneath the bathroom sink to easily access cleaning and paper supplies.
• Install plastic hooks inside the vanity doors and hang rarely used appliances and tools, like specialty brushes and curling irons.
• Install inexpensive wire spice racks inside the vanity door and store bandages and first-aid supplies.

3. More space in the kitchen

Kitchen gear can overwhelm counters and drawers. Move some of the clutter out of sight to simplify work surfaces.

• Install a wall-mounted paper towel holder inside the sink cabinet and use it for rolls of trash bags.
• Create note-boards inside kitchen cabinets by sticking on magnetic strips to hold pens and clips for grocery lists and freezer inventories.
• To free up the junk drawer for more kitchen gear, attach magnetic strips to the insides of several cabinet doors and use small clips and bins to hold keys, markers, tape, and other useful items.
• Use rollout shelves under the sink to store cleaning supplies.
• Mount small bars on the exposed sides of cabinets and hang tools from the bars.

4. Hang it up

A rod and a hook: This simple combination can transform closets, garage and basement space. For the bars, use tension rods (as for curtains or shower curtain); inexpensive towel bars; or storage rods supported with hooks.

• For the hooks, use S hooks from the hardware store; shower curtain rings; or clips.
• Things to hang from utility hooks on garage or basement walls: Wreaths, umbrellas, brooms, mops, rakes, loops of holiday lights.
• Things to hang from S hooks or shower curtain rings in clothes closets: Daily lingerie, tank tops, bathing suits, belts, scarves, lightweight purses and totes.
• Things to hang from S hooks in the laundry room: Lingerie (by straps), hose, yoga wear – all items that should air-dry.

5. Book it with custom shelves

Books and decorative items add warmth and style to rooms but can quickly overwhelm. Here are three ways to merge in more shelf space for functionality and fun.

• Build in bookshelves overhead: Run a single shelf around the perimeter of a room, eight to 10 inches below the ceiling. Make sure it is sturdy enough to hold books. Make sure that only unbreakable, light things are above doors, just in case an items falls when a door slams.
• Triangular shelves set in corners of hallways and entryways can hold an astonishing number of things: keys, mail, lists, sunglasses, gloves, hats.
• Install a shelf above the bathroom door, inside the bathroom, to hold towels.

6. Corral toys

Toys are only fun when you play with them, which is why they are always underfoot. Use these techniques for quick pick-up.

• Use large plastic picnic tablecloths (from the dollar store) as play mats. Kids can scatter Legos, blocks or puzzles across the mats; when it’s time to clean up, pick up the corners of the tablecloth, folding the little pieces inside, and drop the whole thing in a plastic bin.
• Store library and borrowed books in book bags that belong on the coat closet doorknob; it will be easier to remember them when it’s time to return them.
• Lay old open-wire CD racks on their sides to organize children’s picture books.

7. Craft creative storage

Craft and creative inventories need to be clean, easy to find and ready to use when inspiration strikes. These tactics open the way for crafting success.

• Stack spools of ribbon on an inexpensive freestanding paper towel holder.
• If you need to store fabric in bins where it’s hard to see and access, create a quick-reference swatch notebook. Staple a swatch of each fabric to pages of the notebook and jot down how much of each fabric you have. Take this with you when you shop – so you can buy complementary fabric or yarn and won’t buy more of what you already own.
• Hang a tension rod in your craft closet and use S hooks or shower curtain rings to store clear ziplock bags of fragile supplies, such as beadmaking wire and beads, templates and patterns, and specialty rulers.
• Pick up a wine rack at a thrift or dollar store. Nestle found and repurposed containers into the rack and use them to sort and store buttons, beads, notions, markers, stickers, tools and other crafting and sewing supplies and tools.

Small organizational and storage projects can fit into corners of your schedule, too. Pick a couple of small projects for each weekend and you’ll be organized in no time! Want to deep clean your space once it’s organized? Check out these 20 spring cleaning hacks to simplify your life.