15 Steps to Vacuuming Once a Month – Part 3

If you want to vacuum just once a month, you should follow the steps in my last two posts, plus the following:

8. Not to be mean, but it really helps to limit your pets to certain areas of the house. Our shih tzu, Belle, happily lives in one half of the downstairs, with toddler gates to prevent her from going any further. This prevents an accumulation of dog hair in every room of the house, and it also limits her movements when she tracks in dirt or leaves from out back. This might be harder with an older dog, but because we started Belle this way as a puppy, she's never known any better and is perfectly content in "her" part of our home.

9. When choosing new floors and floor coverings, think camouflage! Why install dark carpeting if you have a light-colored dog? Why have a beige mat at your back door if the dirt in your yard is primarily red clay? Think about the nature of the messes that accumulate on your floors—and then make your flooring choices accordingly, with the art of camouflage as your first priority.

10. Taking the above step to the next level, if you are doing any sort of renovation, remember that you should never choose flooring that you haven't first tested for its ability to hide dirt. In fact, the next time you replace a floor with linoleum or tile or even hardwood, try this handy test:

- Choose six patterns that you really like and that coordinate well with your decor
- Ask for (or purchase) 1' x 1' samples of all six patterns
- Put the samples on the most mess-prone areas of your house, such as the kitchen floor in front of the sink and stove.
- Forget about them for a week or two and DON'T clean them.
- At the end of the test period, take a close look at each sample to see which one hid its splotches and splatters best. Upon close inspection, you may be amazed to find that the one you thought was the cleanest is actually the dirtiest.
- Choose the dirt-hiding winner for your new flooring pattern.

A handy hint: In my experience, the best floors for hiding dirt feature a speckled mix of browns and beiges and grays. The single worst kitchen floor I have ever had to deal with was a "checkerboard" of alternating black and white 6" squares. Whatever hid on the black was clearly evident on the white and vice versa. What a nightmare!

Come back next week for more steps.

15 Steps to Vacuuming Once a Month – Part 2

Happy New Year Everyone!

Now, back to our topic. If you want to vacuum just once a month, you should follow the steps in my previous post along with the following:

5. Place a large basket or low rack just inside every exterior door of your home and encourage family and visitors alike to take off their shoes and leave them there as they are coming in, if they want. (Don't make a hard and fast rule of this, however, lest you embarrass someone who has holes in their socks!)

Shoe Rack

6. Keep "tread depth" in mind whenever you buy new shoes for you or your family, and remember that the deeper the tread the more dirt that will get lodged in there and probably end up on your floors. Obviously, athletic shoes are going to have some necessary tread depth, but all other things being equal, choose the shoes with the shallower grooves.

7. The most important step of all: Get a rechargeable battery-operated sweeper and place it in or near the most consistently-dirty floor in the house. Unless you don't cook, that will probably be the kitchen. Get another one for every other level of your home. (Which means if you have a two story house with a finished basement, you need three!) Store each one in a very convenient place and get in the habit of using this sweeper often to clean up the crumbs and other day-to-day messes that accumulate on your floors. I have tried several brands but most prefer the one you've probably seen advertised on TV, the Swivel Sweeper.

Swivel Sweeper
(This isn't a paid endorsement, in case you were wondering. There are a few small drawbacks to the Swivel Sweeper, but of the different brands I've tried, I still liked it best. In a future post, I'll elaborate on the pros and cons—and if you prefer a different brand, I'd love to hear the same back from you.)

Come back next week for more steps!

15 Steps to Vacuuming Once a Month

As I stated in the last blog (and I apologize for the delay), a House That Cleans Itself is one that only needs occasional vacuuming. That's entirely possible if you do the following:

1. Place large, sturdy mats inside and outside every exterior door of your home. The rougher and bigger the mats, the better.

2. If someone in your family routinely tracks in mud, also place a mud scraper outside every exterior door of your home. Also, check back in a few weeks to see my post titled "You Gotta Love Malta". It features a really neat way to stop dirt before it gets tracked inside.

Don't know what a mud scraper is? Click here for an example. Mud Scraper

3. Keep your exterior areas, especially the walkways, free of fallen leaves and other debris.

4. Make sure that visitors can get from your driveway to your door without having to walk on any grass or, even worse, through mud or puddles. Install stepping stones or even a sidewalk, if necessary.

Why not get started on these first four changes, and then check back next week for more steps you can take to reduce your home's need for frequent vacuuming.

No Kidding

I had a fun interview yesterday with a writer who is putting together an article for a major women's magazine. (I'll let you know which one when it hits the stands.)

One of her questions was, "How often should a person vacuum their house? Every day, every other day, or is once a week enough?"

"Once a month," I replied, causing her to gasp.

"You're kidding."

"No really, it's totally possible," I assured her. "If."

"If what?"

"If you first do the following."

I then went on to list the changes you can make to your house that will allow you to avoid vacuuming more than once per month--without living in filth in between. When I was finished with the list, she agreed that it made perfect sense. I knew it would, because that's how things are in a house that cleans itself!

Check back here next week to find out how you, too, can get away with vacuuming just once a month.

Examine Your Sight Zones

Go to the room you want to tackle first. Stand in the doorway, facing in, as if you had just stepped into the house. Now look from side to side. Your Sight Zone includes all of the parts of the room(s) you can see. When you consider the Sight Zone for the space you are in, ask yourself if there is anything you need to do to make this first impression of the interior of your home more attractive and easier to keep clean. Does the area 'work' in terms of setup, flow and design? Are there any changes you can make, such as touching up chipped paint, replacing shabby or overworn items, or removing a stubborn stain?

Consider also, how many other rooms you can see from where you are standing. Is your Sight Zone too broad, covering so many areas that it's impossible to keep them all looking nice all the time?

Page 142 of The House That Cleans Itself has ideas to address this broad Sight Zone issue. Work on your list created in the first paragraph of this entry and stay tuned for some tips on narrowing your Sight Zones!