The pine pollen arrived the first week of April, the way it does every year in Orangeburg: a fine yellow film on the car, on the porch furniture, on the dog. Pepper walked into the kitchen with a yellow nose and I decided it was time. Not to clean everything in a weekend, which I've tried and which ends with me lying on the hallway floor at nine o'clock on Sunday night. This year I did one room a day, over about two weeks.
It's my first spring home since I left the library in January, and I'll admit part of the appeal was having daytime hours to do it in. But the method itself, one room and only one room, would have worked when I was working full time too. It just would have stretched out over weekends.
Why one room at a time works
When I try to clean the whole house at once, I end up with half-finished projects in every room. The linen closet is emptied onto the bed. The pantry shelves are bare with everything spread across the counter. Nothing is done, and everything is in the way.
With one room a day, I start in the morning and finish by lunch, or by supper on a bigger day. Every evening there's one room that's completely done. That feeling carries you to the next one.
My order, and why
I started with the rooms that are easiest to finish and that we use most, so the payoff came quickly.
| Day | Room | Roughly how long |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Half bath | 1 hour |
| 2 | Full bath | 2 hours |
| 3 | Lila's room | 3 hours (with her "help") |
| 4 | Our bedroom | 2½ hours |
| 5 | Spare room / my office | 3 hours |
| 6 | Hallway and linen closet | 1½ hours |
| 7 | Living room | 3 hours |
| 8 | Dining area | 1½ hours |
| 9–10 | Kitchen (split over two days) | 5 hours total |
| 11 | Screened porch | 2 hours |
Rest days are allowed. I skipped weekends and one rainy Wednesday when I just didn't feel like it.
The same checklist in every room
The thing that made it manageable was doing the same steps in the same order every time, top to bottom, so I never had to think about where to start.
- Clear out. Take out anything that doesn't belong in the room. A laundry basket for "goes elsewhere," a bag for donations, a bag for trash.
- Ceiling fan and light fixtures. The fan blades collect a shocking amount of dust over winter. An old pillowcase slipped over each blade and pulled back keeps the dust inside the pillowcase instead of on the bed.
- Walls, corners and the tops of doors and frames. A microfiber cloth on a broom handle.
- Windows. Inside glass, sills and tracks. In April the tracks are full of pollen and dead bugs. An old toothbrush and the vacuum crevice tool handle them.
- Air vents. Remove the covers, wash them in the sink, vacuum inside as far as the hose reaches.
- Surfaces and furniture. Dust, wipe, and move everything that can be moved.
- Floors last. Vacuum under and behind everything, then mop. Our original hardwood gets a damp mop with a little wood floor cleaner, never soaking wet.
Small discoveries along the way
Doing it slowly meant I noticed things I'd have rushed past.
- The bedroom closet had two bags of clothes I'd been meaning to donate since we moved in. They went to the thrift store on Day 4.
- The kitchen cabinet under the sink had a slow drip from the trap. Ben tightened the slip nut in two minutes. It would have been mold by summer.
- Lila owned eleven nearly identical stuffed rabbits. Four were allowed to "retire to a new family." This took longer than cleaning the entire bathroom.
- The air filter for the heat pump was overdue. I bought a three-pack and wrote the next change date on the edge of the new filter in marker.
The porch, for last
I saved the screened porch for the end on purpose, and I timed it for after the worst of the pollen. I hosed the screens from the outside, scrubbed the floor with a stiff broom and soapy water, wiped down the wicker, and washed the cushion covers. Then I put out the two potted ferns I've been nursing on the kitchen windowsill since March.
That evening, Ben and I sat out there after Lila was asleep. The air smelled like wet concrete and the first honeysuckle along the back fence. Inside, every room in the house had been touched by my hands at some point in the past two weeks. It wasn't perfect. The oven still needs a real cleaning, and there's a box in the shed I've decided to pretend I haven't seen. But the house felt aired out, the way a body feels after a long walk. I'll take that, and start again next spring.
