Cleaning Your House (For a Home Tour)

Our house has been a work in progress for over 6 years now. This means the extended family is curious and would love to see the progress. Everyone is coming in town next week for a family wedding and my in laws (who have been the ones doing the work on the house) have invited everyone over to see it. Especially living in an unfinished house, it's really hard to find a home for everything. We have bought some things that were on sale that we know exactly where they go but that room isn't done yet so we don't know what to do with the items. It's things like that that make our home kind of a mess.

In the past few months, we've gotten more finished (our baby even got to move into her real nursery! Before now, she was living in our old bedroom, which will become a guest room until we have more kids) so that does make it somewhat easier.

The other thing is, with a home tour, you can't follow most people's advice for cleaning for company. They all say to just put clutter and stuff into rooms and shut the door. But our relatives are going to see everything. Then I looked up how to clean your house for an open house when you are selling. I thought this would work out since then the people are seeing the entire house but with that, people usually rent a storage unit and move most of their clutter into that so the home itself contains very little of what they would actually have in it. Again, not a solution for me.

This brings me to the only option left: actually clean the house. They will understand the construction zones but the rest of it really has to be in tip-top shape. This is how.

• First of all, remember that your home will never look like the homes in magazines. Most of those pictures are staged and they aren't realistic for actually living in them. Even professional cleaners and organizers can't make it look like that. 
• Don't buy organizers until after you know exactly what you need and how many. I started with our black shelf (that I had previously organized without baskets). I decided this needed makeover because it was already starting to be a mess again. I knew all the categories though, so I just bought that many baskets and then made labels for them myself (out of index cards and ribbon). Now, it looks much better and I didn't waste any money on organizing supplies I didn't need.
• Start small. Don't expect to spend the whole day organizing (especially if you have children!) to get the whole house done. It doesn't work that way. You'll burn yourself out. I allowed myself two weeks to get it all done and then I work for just a few hours each day. 
• Don't be afraid to give stuff away. This can help clear out a lot of stuff. Ask yourself if you seriously need this item. Does it still fit? Is it realistic to hold onto? There are other websites to help you find more questions to eliminate things.
• Break it down. Make a list of everything you have to get done. I love making lists so this isn't a problem for me. I just go room by room and write down everything. You could do an extra step and prioritize it all so if you do run out of time, you know which stuff really matters.
• Leave some things for the end on purpose. Things like dishes, laundry, and cleaning the bathrooms can wait til the end because if you do them too early, it's going to look like you never did them in the first place. 

Then it's just a matter of doing it. Decluttering will make a bigger difference than actually cleaning so if you only have time to do a few things, get the junk out. 

I hope this list helps. I know it can seem overwhelming (believe me, my list is PLENTY long) and you do have to other things too (in my case, take care of a baby) but if you just do some each day, it'll get done and the end result will be worth it. 

If you would like more tips, you can see my cleaning tab at the top of the blog or make a comment below.