Hello Kansas City! Welcome back to the Red Kingdom Cleaning Podcast. We’re so glad that you joined us tonight to talk more about our Lee’s Summit home cleaning services.
We absolutely love what we do. We love getting to benefit the families of Lee’s Summit, Independence, Grain Valley, and we’ve even expanded up into Liberty. We would love to connect with you and see how best we could offer services to you and make sure that you are living your best life with your families.
You have time for the things that matter most to you. And for most people, cleaning their home is not it, but the value of their home being cleaned is really important to them.
So we’re going to go through a list and give you some advice on if you are cleaning your own home or if you’re cleaning in between cleans. Here’s the best order in which to do them.
What is the best order to clean the room?
The best order to clean the room is from top to bottom and go from dry to wet. Dusting with a dry towel and then going over it with a wet towel is best.
If you’re going to clean the mirror, dust around it first and then spray for a mirror. Start by removing all the trash and clutter.
I saw somebody that first, by removing all the clutter, they took baskets and put everything that didn’t belong in that room into a basket. Then they put those items away and went to the next room.
That way, they weren’t walking a million steps while cleaning their house because they kept taking one item, putting it away, taking another item, putting it away.
Sometimes it’s best to get all the clutter out of the way, and then you can really dust.
You first want to start with the highest surfaces in the room and then work your way down. Things like your ceiling fans, shelves, picture frames, lamps, and furniture.
Then you can wipe surfaces that need product, like your counters, tables, door handles, and any high-touch areas.
First, start high and work your way down. First, start dry to wet.
Once the dusting and wiping are done, you can move on to the floors. Vacuuming first. Even if you have hardwoods, vacuum first.
Sometimes the broom can move it around. It doesn’t actually get rid of the debris. First, use the vacuum and pick up all the dust, crumbs, hair, and debris.
Sometimes I like to go over the corners because the vacuum might miss some of the corner pieces. Go over it with a vacuum and then take your broom and go over the corners of the house. Then you mop.
Floors are usually the last thing because everything drops to the floor. All the dust and crumbs go downward.
If you mop first and then clean the counters, you may knock some crumbs onto the floor. If you clean a bathroom mirror before dusting the light above it, the dust may fall onto the mirror or the counter anyways.
Also, the mirror spray is wet, and if you dust, it’ll clean that wet product. Even if you wiped it off, it’s still going to be a little wet.
Number one, trash. Then you tidy, dust, wipe, vacuum, and mop.
Should you dust or vacuum first?
I know we covered that before, but you should always dust first and then vacuum second.
Dusting can knock down particles into the air and lower onto the surfaces. Gravity obviously pulls it down. Even if you’re careful, some dust will fall.
If you vacuum first and dust afterward, you may end up with dust on your floor that you’ve already cleaned.
Remember to work high to low. Dust your ceiling fans first, anything that’s the highest point.
Also, go over the corners of your house. Sometimes people forget that. Do the corners of your house, the furniture, lamps, baseboards, and then vacuum.
How often should you mop your floors?
Most homes need mopping at least every one to two weeks. High-traffic areas might need it weekly or even more often.
Kitchens, entryways, bathrooms, and mudrooms can get pretty dirty because of food, water, shoes, spills, and daily use.
We have our dogs, so their little muddy paws when they come in from outside can make that one spot really muddy. Our couch often can be pretty dirty too, so we like to switch the couch covers or vacuum it more often.
If you have kids or pets, or you have a lot of people coming in and out, your floors may need more attention than others.
Paw prints, crumbs, sticky spills, and outdoor dirt can build up really quickly.
One thing to remember is that mopping works best after vacuuming or sweeping. If you mop over crumbs, hair, and debris, you’re just moving dirt around with wet product.
It’s also important not to use too much cleaner. Too much product can leave a residue and make the floors feel sticky.
We have a client who said, “I always felt like right after they left, the floors were really sticky.”
It could be their product, maybe they were using too much of it, or maybe the product itself wasn’t high quality.
That’s one thing that our clients always say: the floors feel really nice afterwards and they feel really shiny.
Our house got cleaned yesterday, and I’m really looking at our floors thinking, “They look so shiny after being cleaned yesterday.”
How often should you vacuum?
Most homes should be vacuumed at least once a week. But if you have pets, kids, a lot of carpet, or high foot traffic, you may need to vacuum even more than that.
We’ve had Roombas in the past in our own personal homes. That’s great to keep up with any of the dirt.
Carpet can hold dust, hair, crumbs, dander, and allergens. Regular vacuuming can make a really big difference in how clean the home feels.
It also helps with your allergies. If things are outside, they come inside and then they stay. Getting them with a vacuum can really help decrease that.
Even hard floors benefit from vacuuming because dust and debris collect along the edges, under furniture, and corners.
Sweeping can work, but vacuuming often does a better job of capturing the fine dust and hair.
If you have a dog or cat, vacuuming more often can help control pet hair and odors. It also helps hair from collecting on baseboards, furniture, and rugs.
The quality of the vacuum obviously matters a lot too. Make sure you get a vacuum with good suction.
Clean filters work much better than one that’s clogged or overdue for maintenance.
Our cleaners clean them after every single house, and then they do a thorough deep clean of the vacuums every single week.
Make sure you empty the canister, change the bag regularly, and even wash out some of those little pieces in between. That can really help.
How often should you wash bedding?
Most bedding should be washed weekly or every two weeks.
Sheets collect sweat, body oils, dead skin cells, hair, dust, and pet dander. Even if they do not look dirty, they can hold a lot of buildup.
If you have allergies, pets sleeping in the bed, night sweats, or someone’s been sick, weekly washing is a better choice.
Pillowcases may need to be washed even more often because they touch your face every single night.
Especially if you have acne, things like that, it’s best to get even silk pillowcases. They are supposed to be better for your hair, but washing those more regularly is important.
Things like your comforter, duvet covers, mattress protectors, and blankets don’t always need weekly washing, but they should be cleaned regularly.
Once a month, I clean all of our bedding, if not sooner. But weekly, I wash all of our sheets.
We change them out every single week no matter what and change pillowcases out. Sometimes even more often, depending on if our dogs have been laying on them or not.
Clean bedding can make the whole room feel so much fresher.
It helps with your quality of sleep because you feel more peaceful getting to bed at the end of the day knowing that it is perfectly clean.
How often should you clean your baseboards?
Baseboards should be dusted regularly. You can wipe them down during deeper cleans.
The more often you clean them, the less you have to scrub them down later.
You can even take a dry mop head and brush along them to maintain them.
In many homes, baseboards collect dust, pet hair, dirt from your shoes, and grime.
If you have pets, kids, or a lot of foot traffic, they need more attention more often.
A little light dusting can be done every few weeks with a duster or a vacuum attachment.
You can also get on your hands and knees and scrub them depending on their quality, but specifically look at your bathroom and kitchen.
Those two areas might need more frequent wiping down and maybe a little more scrubbing.
You can use Dawn soap for that. You can also use Tide laundry detergent mixed with hot water.
This can make a big difference in the overall feel of your home.
If you’re wanting to learn more about our Lee’s Summit home cleaning services, we would love to connect with you and give you a free quote on your house to let you know what it would look like to do a deep clean, maintenance clean, or move-in move-out clean.
We would love to create a custom checklist for you that works best for you.
You can call or text us at 816-623-1497, email us at info@redkingdomcleaning.com, or go to our website, redkingdomcleaning.com, and fill out our booking form.
That gives us a little more information about you so we can best make sure that we are filling all the desires of your heart for your home.