When was the last time you gave your oven a thorough clean? Or cleaned out your fridge from top to bottom? As a busy mum, it’s often hard to find the time to get to all of the house cleaning — but with this quick and easy guide, your home will be sparkling and clean in no time!
10 minutes: Oven clean
Food crumbs, spills, burnt-on fat and splashes of casserole sauce: These are just some of the serial offenders that litter the nooks and crannies of your oven on a daily basis. Give your oven a refresh with a heavy-duty oven cleaner as it allows you to cut through tough, baked-on grease and grime without scrubbing so hard you sprain your wrist!
“Scour with the pantyhose until the grime shifts,” advises cleaning expert extraordinaire Shannon Lush, Lifestyle TV presenter and author of best-selling books Spotless, Speed Cleaning and How to Be Comfy. “You may have to do this several times if the grime is very built up,” she says.
20 minutes: Speedy playroom pick-up
If you’re lucky enough to have a designated playroom in your house — rather than your kids taking over the lounge or family room — then a little time may have passed since your last proper playroom clean-up. You can’t blame a busy mum for simply closing the door and pretending the mess and clutter doesn’t exist! Regardless, it’s a good idea to do a decent clean-out of the playroom around once a month, if for no other reason than to locate and discard half-eaten sandwiches and hidden banana peels.
To pick up your play room in 20 minutes flat, designate the room or area into four different zones and move through each area one by one. Have a bin and a plastic bag handy — you can toss toys that your kids have outgrown into the plastic bag as you go — and if you can, have your kids help you with the playroom pick-up to speed up the process even further.
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30 minutes: Linen closet clean-out
This is one of those jobs that we often avoid because we mistakenly think it’s going to take us longer than it actually does! The key to success is preparation: You need three large bin bags to speed up the process of culling and cleaning.
- One bag is for sheets and towels to be donated to charity, such as the Animal Welfare League.
- One bag is for items that are musty or dirty and need to be washed.
- One bag is for ripped, stained or dirty linens that should be binned.
Clean out one shelf at a time, making sure you carefully refold and stack towels, sheets, blankets and pillowcases in neat piles as you go. This trusty bag system should help you whip through your linen closet in no time!
45 minutes: Quick refrigerator refresh
Cleaning your fridge from top to bottom can seem intimidating, but it doesn’t need to be a big job. Attack it shelf by shelf: It’s a good idea to start cleaning from the top down, as there’s nothing more frustrating than dislodging a surprise pocket of crumbs or sauce from a top shelf, only to have it spread or drip down on the clean shelves below!
Start by removing all of the food from one shelf, then use a multi-purpose product such as Mr Muscle Touch-Up Cleaner for the Kitchen and a soft cloth to wipe the shelf clean and kill nasty germs. Replace the food neatly (obviously discarding any expired foods as you go), then move to the next shelf.
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