Today Shannon is hosting a special edition of Works for Me Wednesday - all about the kitchen.
I usually share recipes and how-tos, but since today I thought I'd share my kitchen cleaning techniques.

Spring Cleaning? How the heck did that happen? I'm still working on the Autumn Scrub...

I have a schedule in my homekeeping notebook. I started it with Flylady, but I've found that working a zone room each month just doesn't work for me. I get bored to easily, and some rooms (kitchen) really need to be worked more often than once a month.

I also have good days and bad days, with all the littlies and preterm contractions, so I needed a schedule that is flexible.

Here's what works for me!

I laid out my week Large Family Logistics style. Monday is office day, Tuesday is errand day, Wednesday is Kitchen day, Thursday is Laundry day, and Friday is clean the house day. I do laundry every day but Thursday is catch up day (and often I end up swapping the days around. The only one set in stone is Wednesday Kitchen Day.) I picked Friday for Clean the House day because husband dear is home early from work and he helps with the bigger stuff and the kid room cleaning (which, being a yeller by nature AND 9 months pregnant isn't pretty when I do it!)

Wednesday is Kitchen Day because Thursday is trash pick up day! I used to clean up - but put off the fridge stuff or really grungy stuff until "trash day" and then it never happened.

The first step is to keep up with the daily kitchen stuff. I have a daily schedule that includes stuff like, "unload dishwasher", "clean up lunch dishes", "wipe table", stuff I do throughout the day. Yes, I actually write down fixing lunch, planning dinner and taking out meat, and so on or it wouldn't get done!

My schedule pages are in plastic sheet protectors, and I write on them with Expo dry erase pens.

I also have a checklist for cleaning the kitchen after dinner. It has exactly 20 steps, because I'm weird and having 19 steps seemed, well, just wrong. Lately husband dear has been cleaning the kitchen after dinner, but I haven't been able to get him to look at the list. Personally, I usually get about 15-18 things done from the list, rarely all 20, but something's better than nothing!


(Click on the pictures to see them better)

We also assign the older kids (age 8,7, 6) a room that they are in charge of - either the living room, play/school room, or kitchen. They get their room for a week, and we switch on Saturday. The kitchen person usually ends up only unloading the dishwasher on weekends, because we run it at night and I unload it during the day while they are at school. Baby C loves to help by handing me one fork or spoon at a time. It can take a really long time!

Here's what my "Wednesday" page looks like:


I have a list of tasks to be done each week of the month - the "extra" part of kitchen day. But, again, I'm all about the flexibility! This is what my sheet looks like so far this month. I'm not afraid to work ahead, depending on what's going on. So, if someone spills a glass of milk in the fridge, and I end up washing all of the shelves, I'll check it off for the month even if it's only the second week.

Here's what it looks like so far this month:

Works for me!

On a related note, every kitchen I've ever had has it's own special quirks. Our kitchen right now has uneven counters, which results in puddles of standing water on the counter unless it is constantly dried off. Also, our refrigerator door is 33 inches wide. The space between the fridge and the wall is 25 inches. So, we can only open the door halfway. What are your kitchen quirks?

Labels: Family Life, homemaking, Works For Me Wednesday