Welcome to Guelph Maids! Today we’re talking about the calm of a clean home before school starts.
School starts very soon and we want to give you some tips on how to keep your home clean before (and after!). Besides, summer is ending soon, so you might want to tackle this as a quarterly deep cleaning for your home.
Here are some tips and tricks to help you create a calm, organized home before school starts.
Why a Clean Home Matters When School Starts
The last weeks of summer are a blur, between backpack shopping and new shoes that already feel tight, and somehow your kitchen is somehow even messier than mid-July.
Now that September is just about to begin, here’s something that actually helps: a genuinely clean house, not to impress visitors, but to find your car keys on the first try.
You already know this on some level, but let’s name it: clean spaces calm down the chaos. This study on PubMed from 2006 has found that disorganization, clutter, lack of routines, and unpredictability are associated with more behavior problems in children, poorer executive functioning, and greater stress for parents.
According to this study from the Carnegie Mellon University, kids focus better in organized spaces.
And in real life, we all know how frustrating it is to spend 20 minutes every morning digging through laundry piles to find pants. That’s not a small thing when you’ve got a tight schedule waiting.
Starting With the Bedrooms: Back to School Cleaning Done Right
Bedrooms deserve real attention before school starts. Remember both kids and adults come back home tired from work or school and it’s important to have a nice space to rest.
It’s important to declutter first and clear out the summer items that have to return to the right spot. This includes pool floats or the books scattered everywhere, or even summer clothing that you won’t be wearing until next year.
Start simple. Strip the beds, wash everything, and put clean sheets back on. Kids sleep better on clean sheets, and that matters when their schedule is about to flip upside down.
Then tackle the closets. Go through what actually fits and get your kids to decide what stays and what goes. The first week of September is the perfect time to donate things that are too small, and it takes the stress out of Monday mornings.
Your kids may complain at first but once they can actually see their clothes instead of digging for 30 minutes they will see the benefits. It’s important to teach them how to keep and wear only what they love and that matches their size and style.
The Kitchen: Where the Chaos Lives
Here’s the honest truth: your kitchen is about to become mission control. Lunch prep, snack organization, after-school chaos. It needs to start from a solid baseline.
Clean out the fridge completely. Toss the mysterious containers, the condiments that expired last month, the half-empty jars that nobody uses. Wipe down the shelves. A clean fridge is a happy fridge, and you need one that works without making you frustrated.
Then hit the cabinets. Specifically, the ones at kid-height. If they can reach it easily, it should be clean and organized.
Organizers and containers can help you keep things under control, like matching containers for snacks, or even labels if you’re feeling fancy.
The counters need space. You’re going to need that counter space for lunch boxes, homework folders, school paperwork. If it’s covered in stuff, you’re already losing before September 1st.
If it helps you, keep a small box or container on your countertop next to the splashback to help you keep things organized.
Bathrooms Need Actual Attention
Kids back to school means shorter showers because they’re usually running late. This means they usually leave the bathroom a bit messier than usual and sometimes they don’t have time to squeegee the glass doors (which is an habit you should teach them as soon as possible!).
Deep clean the mirrors and glass. Usually, a glass cleaner or white vinegar is enough. If you’re having a hard time making them look nice and shiny, it might be because you have hard water. Guelph has some of the hardest water in Canada.
If that’s the case, white vinegar won’t be enough. You have to use a hard water stain remover, or limescale remover (they serve the same purpose).
Scrub the tiles and use a cleaning brush to get into corners, the ones with pointy ends are really helpful.
Stock up on the basics: at least soap, clean towels, toilet paper should be covered. Make sure you have plenty of stock so your kids won’t ask you to get toilet paper at 6:30 a.m.
If you notice the cleaning products are not sticking properly to walls, you should try switching to a bathroom foam cleaner. They stick to your walls and act on the surface for 10-15 minutes before you scrub and rinse.
Living Spaces: Give Yourself Room to Breathe
Living rooms and family spaces are where the overflow happens. Like everything else, as long as your items have their own “place” to land on, your living room will look and feel tidier.
Make sure you have hooks for the backpacks and gym clothes and a tray for the school forms. And don’t forget a small basket for your keys and sunglasses.
After tidying up, vacuum thoroughly and dust surfaces. If you have pets, pay attention to the areas where they sleep or play towers because they usually keep a lot of hair and dander.
A professional standard cleaning service through these zones would honestly feel amazing right now, but if that’s not happening this week, at least vacuuming and wiping surfaces once makes a real difference. Visible dirt adds to the overwhelm somehow.
The Basement and Storage Spaces Nobody Talks About
You don’t need to reorganize your entire basement. Just make sure the things you’ll need when the weather changes aren’t buried under everything else.
Start pulling winter clothes forward and put summer things you won’t need again for a while toward the back. Group the kids’ boots, coats and hats together.
A helpful tip to organize storage spaces is to place three large boxes: Keep, Donate, and Throwaway. This is especially helpful if you have clothes that don’t fit anymore, for example.
If you live in an apartment or condo in Guelph, your storage situation might be tight. Even tighter, you need it organized. Use the space you have and get rid of what you don’t need. Keep the things you use most often easy to reach.
What to Do During the First Week of School
Once the main cleaning is done, don’t immediately start another giant cleaning project.
School is about to add enough activity to your week already so it’s better to keep things simple during the first week.
You can keep the house going with a few simple habits:
- Make the beds in the morning.
- Clear the kitchen counters at night.
- Put shoes and backpacks back where they belong.
- Throw a load of laundry in when the basket starts filling up instead of waiting until it becomes an emergency. A trick that can help you is assigning two weekdays (e.g. Tuesdays and Thursdays) specifically for this task so it removes some load off your shoulders for the weekend.
It’s also important to get the kids involved. Even young children can put away their shoes, return toys to their places, put dirty clothes in the hamper, or clear their spot at the table.
Building these little habits gives them a sense of accomplishment and also helps you tick things off the bucket list.
One night a week, spend maybe 15 – 30 minutes tidying bedrooms. Not deep cleaning, just tidying. Picking things up, putting them away, making the floor visible. Your kids can probably do this too. It takes almost no time, honestly.
When You Need Actual Help
If you’re looking at this and feeling completely overwhelmed, that’s normal. September is genuinely hard and school year is relentless.
A professional deep cleaning service right now could handle one thing completely well while you handle everything else. Someone else gets the baseboards and ceiling fans and inside cabinets while you keep breathing.
We suggest our customers to book a deep cleaning service this time of the year anyways, and then another one in late November or early December.
Just focus on trying to survive September without losing your mind, and that’s enough.
That’s all for this month! We hope you have a fantastic week. Don’t forget to contact us or visit our booking page if you need a pair of extra hands to help you keep your home clean and relieve some of the stress from the back-to-school season. We’ll be back soon!
