Click here for what to do when Living Room is the Lucky Room of the Day.

Daily Maintenance:
Remove dirty dishes, clothes, shoes
Put movies, CDs, and DVDs in their cases and put them away
Throw away trash
Vacuum lightly every day if you have pets or children, or if you eat in the living room.

Avoid folding laundry in the living room unless absolutely necessary, because laundry folded in the living room tends to stay in the living room!

Weekly Duties: What to do when the Living Room is the Lucky Room of the Day:

Tools needed:

• Trash Bag

• Basket or Bin

• Glass Cleaner

• Wood Cleaner

• Feather Duster

• Dusting Cloth

• Cloth for Glass

• Dishpan or bucket to carry cleaning supplies

• Very soft clean toothbrush or very soft clean paintbrush, canned air (optional)

• Vacuum Cleaner

DECLUTTERING- Spend about 15-20 minutes decluttering the living room before you try to clean. (If you’ve been keeping up on daily maintenance, this should take less time each week. Make it your goal to do a little bit of this each day so you can get right to cleaning.)

Remove dirty dishes and clothes, throw away newspapers, put toys in the toyroom, put books back on the bookshelves. While decluttering, keep a bin near you for things that go into other rooms. If you still have a few minutes of decluttering time, clean off and rearrange a shelf or other horizontal surface. If you’re very Messie, you might want to work on the living room every day, along with your other room of the day. You might want to add decluttering the living room to your 5/5 list. Consider making it very specific: such as removing dirty dishes. Your kids could add putting away toys from the living room to their 5/5 or 3/3 lists. Work methodically around the room so the clutter stays fairly confined and areas you’ve already decluttered stay fairly clear.

Put movies back in their cases and put away (preferably in alphabetical order.) Same with C-Ds and D-V-Ds.

If you start on the room and have NO dirty dishes, movies, books, or newspapers out of place, then you can purge old magazines (if you take care of them within a month, they’ll still be fresh enough to donate to your doctor, vet, mechanic, or to a homeless or battered women shelter.) Throw away old catalogs unless you ACTUALLY INTEND TO ORDER SOMETHING. As you get better at this, you can start donating those to schools or daycares for kids to cut up.

If necessary, remove and wash blinds or curtains (if they’re washable.) Use the feather duster on blinds.

Once your living room is a little more decluttered, you can start cleaning. Once again, work methodically around the room, clockwise or counter-clockwise. Work top to bottom. Carry your supplies with you. First, use the feather duster to remove dust from the tops of things. Use the glass cleaner to clean mirrors, glass on pictures, the TV screen, and other glass items. (Some glass curios can be washed in the kitchen sink in hot soapy water.) Use the paintbrush, toothbrush, or canned air to clean dust off ornate curios that cannot be washed in water. Use the wood cleaner on all wood surfaces. When you’re just starting out with a very messy living room, don’t try to get the whole room clean at once. Spend about 30 minutes on this process.

Make sure to groom plants and get rid of dead ones. Dust your remote control and the buttons on your electronic equipment. Moisten the cloth with glass cleaner if necessary.

COUCH/ SOFA- The first week of the month, (more if you have kids or pets or if you eat in the living room) remove all the cushions and pillows from your couches and upholstered seats. You can beat them outside, you can vacuum them, just concentrate on getting them cleaner. While you have the couches and chairs open, vacuum under the cushions. Move the furniture and vacuum thoroughly underneath it. Put the cushions back on.

WINDOWS- The second week of the month, clean the insides of the windows and vacuum or clean the windowsills (including the space between the inside windows and the storm windows.)

Some time in the spring, take down the storm windows and wash them. You can even leave them off until fall IF YOU HAVE A SAFE PLACE TO STORE THEM. Take down the screens and wash the outside of the windows at that time. Repair any holes in the screens with a kit you can buy at a discount store.

In early fall, replace the storm windows.

Now, vacuum the rest of the room thoroughly, at least 10 strokes on high traffic areas. Pay special attention to the edges of carpets.

Now, put away the vacuum cleaner and cleaning supplies. Put the items in the bin or basket in the room where they belong. Put up the curtains or blinds, if you took them down to wash them.