Ready for an easy way to clean and purge your home? Here’s some advice on deep cleaning from room-to-room without needing a list! Including a printable guide to get you going.

And with every Happy New Year comes the desire to ditch clutter asap! While Christmas is always a wonderful and magical experience, the extra stuff by January makes me jittery and I crave bare spaces once again. Can you relate?

So I mulled over how I’d go about deep cleaning and purging this year.

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An exceptional deep cleaning book to have

 

I’ve long been a fan of Marie Kondo’s method of cleaning by category. If you haven’t yet read her book The Life-changing Magic of Tiding Up (HERE on Amazon), I highly recommend doing so. It’s an easy read and very inspirational to the point of, you won’t want to finish the book before you start!

Two years ago, I followed and blogged an 8 week series using her method you can read about HERE.

And while her method did work as long as I kept up, I always felt I never got to the end of the list before I just ran out of time needed for other things. Although cleaning by category is thorough, it’s very time consuming. But if you can stick with it, I say do it!

Another con was, a given room never truly felt complete if I wanted to move on quickly. Part of the room would be clean as a whistle, while the other half continued to grow cobwebs because it didn’t include the category at hand. 

I’ve decided to tackle cleaning a little differently this year, and that’s to clean room-by-room.

So I thought I’d share how I plan to do it, in conjunction to some tips from Marie Kondo that I’ve learned along the way! And offer up some additional bathroom cleaning tips that may surprise you… one in particular did to many on social media!

Easy deep cleaning for 2023 (with bathroom tips)

 

I’ll be the first to say I am not a cleaning expert. Far from it! But my theory is, if I want to see impact quickly, this seems to be a logical tactic that I’m willing to try.

There will be no list to go by this round. It’s going to be about, “I can’t stand that room, so let’s dump the drawers now so there’s no turning back!” kinda type thing.

So here’s a few additional tips on a few pitfalls to avoid if you do this method, thanks to Marie Kondo’s exceptional advice.

1. Start by dumping a drawer

 

If you’re anything like me, starting is the very the hardest part. How do you go from a week of Netflix to roll-up-your-sleeves deep cleaning?!

I was completely overwhelmed on where to start because every single room needed the same amount of attention.

So I simply walked into the main bathroom which is a relatively small space, emptied the vanity contents onto the floor and was forced to start. Yay me!

I know by experience that enthusiasm will eventually kick in. But I’d need to see some quick end results first. So I fought right through the resistance and 2 hours later, the entire room was completely done!

How to build reclaimed wood closet shelves

How I originally purged the bathroom

2. Start an easy room first

 

Imagine choosing a massive craft room with oodles of nooks and crannies, vs. a small bathroom. Which room would give you the most success the quickest?

It’s my belief that at the start of a good purge, we need to train ourselves to be fierce and relinquish quickly. Because relinquishing is where it’s at if you want to GAIN space. No sense simply shuffling ending up where you were.

So choosing smaller, easier and quicker will become very motivating to keep going.

I personally started with the main bathroom. It’s an easy room that holds no memories. Expired meds got tossed. Ripped towels turned into rags. Have too many towels? Ditch clutter you don’t use and create the space needed or reduce your towels.

Pretty quick and easy decisions.

View more storage bin ideas HERE

See more helpful and unique bathroom projects HERE

3. Avoid sentimental things early on

 

This is my childhood saddle. I stored this thing for YEARS because I didn’t have the space to display it, but it was 100% always in my way. However I couldn’t bring myself to let it go. It held so many memories of riding growing up! But one day, I decided to move it out of my way one last time, took some pictures, shared the experience on the blog (this helps preserve the memories!) then sold it to a young rider who could actually enjoy it every day.

Now imagine starting to deep clean a room filled with furniture gifted to you from family. Sheer avoidance to purge does not get you the space you’re after in short order!

But in a bathroom, the hardest decision you’ll likely be making is chucking out overdue meds and such. Easy and done!

Tool storage cabinet inside the house

4. Be fully aware of duplicates

 

With Marie Kondo’s cleaning method, she believes that if you group 1 category into a huge pile, you’ll have a better handle on what you actually have. Then only store it in one place and ditch the duplicates.

I agree with that to a degree.

Tool storage inside the garage workshop

As for myself, I like to have a tool station inside the house and in my workshop, so I stock most of my tools in the workshop, with a small set of most-used duplicates inside the house for easy access.

And as for duplicates in the bathroom? Medications and vitamins have a shelf in the bathroom and kitchen, so I go through both spaces to ensure I don’t have a huge surplus of one thing and nothing of another.

Check out tool storage products HERE

View many more workshop organizing projects HERE

5. Quick sorting tips

 

Cleaning is one thing. But sorting and getting rid of it are also a bit part of this and take time. So here’s a few quick tips on what I do to get unwanted clutter outside my front door.

1. Create collection boxes for keep / sell / donate / throw out.
2. Gut a room completely of nearly everything first, then clean.
3. Make piles of like-minded items.
4. Only put back what you want or need.
5. Ditch the rest.
6. Sell on Facebook marketplace or FB bidding sights to earn and lighten the load.
7. Store a thrift store box in your vehicle so it’s ready to drop off next time you drive by.

Deep cleaning tips for a main bathroom

 

So for the main bathroom, aside from the standard cleaning, here’s what I did that got the job done in under 2 hours, with the most surprising tip for most listed at the bottom!

• Remove cobwebs and dust with a duster on the ceilings, high up on walls, light fixtures and above window
• Remove shower light fixture (if you have one) to clean debris
• Gut vanity, vacuum drawers, wipe down, then restock
• Empty, clean and restock closets
• Purge excessive items from closet so everything fit with space to grow
• Take a toothbrush to the baseboards
• Scrub the floor register
• Throw the plastic shower curtains and liner with suction bathmat into the regular laundry
• Clear all countertops of clutter
• Stock cleaner, paper towels, sponges, microfiber cloth or rags nearby so it’s easy to clean at a moment’s notice
• Clean windows with glass cleaner, then the tracks using a toothbrush and spray bottle
• Wash any floor mats or carpets
• Wipe down all walls, door handles, doors and light switches
• Hand wash floors and scrub grout grime if applicable
• Add additional taller bins if you require more space

Did anything surprise you in that list? The most commotion I got on social media was laundering the shower curtain and bath mat!

I do this nearly every week and they come out looking brand new. All soap scum and mildew disappears! So give it a go if you haven’t tried it yet!

6. Befores and Afters to inspire you

 

There’s nothing quite like some super inspiring deep cleaning befores and afters to help get you going! So watching the stories life will most certainly help!

And if you’d like to be inspired before the blog posts go up, please be sure to follow me on Instagram stories where I’ll save each room highlight so you can be a part of it while I do it!

So here’s a few to help fuel more inspiration!

Other cleaning posts to inspire:

 

Paint studio revamp

 

How I revamped my paint studio

My collections got out of hand. So I did some very heavy purging and started fresh!

Cleaning a garage workshop

 

Garage Workshop I can park in series

One of the most dramatic series was my single car garage that not only is fully set up, I can also park in it now too! And it still looks this good.

Storing collections shelving revamp

 

The collections storage shelves revamp

The collections I use for decorating that are stored downstairs overflowed their shelves. So it was gut time! But that came with a few unexpected additions, such as painting the walls, shelves and floors too!

How to whiten and keep white slipcovers clean

 

How I keep my IKEA white slipcovers clean

So that’s my plan and I hope to stick to it!

Has this post inspired you to get going with your deep cleaning? What method will you be trying this year?

View 34+ unique shelving ideas to make HERE

Check out creative workshop organizing ideas HERE

Check out the Crap to Clean series HERE

Visit the Marie Kondo 8 week cleaning series HERE

Visit more cleaning posts HERE