A weekly household chores checklist that fits a real week

Most cleaning checklists online are far too long and assume you will work through the whole thing on a Saturday. Almost nobody does. We have been cleaning Portland homes since 2005, and the houses that stay clean are not the ones with the longest list. They are the ones where a short list actually gets done.

So here is a weekly household chores checklist built around what a real week looks like. Daily, weekly, monthly, twice a year. With time estimates that are honest, and a section at the end on what you can safely ignore.

Daily: about ten minutes

These are the tasks that decide how hard the weekly clean will be. Skip them for a week and Saturday takes twice as long.

• Wipe the kitchen counters and the stovetop after the last meal. Two minutes while something is still warm beats fifteen minutes of scrubbing on Saturday.
• Run the dishwasher or wash what is in the sink. An empty sink at bedtime is the single habit that changes a kitchen most.
• Take a lap with a basket and put stray items back where they live. Five minutes, whole house.
• Hang the bathroom towels so they dry flat. Portland gets damp from October through May, and a towel bunched on a hook will smell by Wednesday.
• Squeegee or wipe the shower walls after the last shower. This is the difference between a bathroom that needs a wipe and one that needs a scrub.

Weekly, by room

You do not have to do all of this in one block. Our own visits run two hours minimum, and a two hour visit in an average three bedroom home covers roughly the kitchen, the bathrooms and the floors. If you are doing it yourself, splitting the list across two evenings works better than one long push.

Kitchen: 25 to 35 minutes

• Clear the counters completely, wipe them, then put things back. Wiping around the toaster is not wiping the counter.
• Scrub the sink and the faucet, including the base of the faucet where grime collects.
• Wipe the fronts of the fridge, dishwasher, oven and microwave, plus the handles.
• Clean the inside of the microwave. Heat a bowl of water for two minutes first and the splatter wipes off without scrubbing.
• Wipe cabinet fronts around the handles and above the stove. The rest of the cabinet can wait for the monthly pass.
• Empty the trash and wipe the lid and the rim of the can.
• Sweep and mop the floor last, after everything above.

Each bathroom: 15 to 20 minutes

• Spray the tub, shower and toilet first and leave them for five minutes while you do the mirror and the counter. Dwell time does the work that scrubbing otherwise has to.
• Scrub the toilet bowl, then wipe the seat, the lid, the tank and the base. The base and the bolts are what people miss.
• Wipe the shower walls and door, and the tub.
• Clean the mirror and the sink, and wipe the counter and the light switch.
• Swap the towels and the bath mat.
• Mop or wipe the floor, corners included.

One Portland note on soap scum. Bull Run water is unusually soft, so most Portland bathrooms have far less hard water scale than bathrooms in cities that run on hard groundwater. If you have a white film on the glass here, it is usually soap residue rather than mineral scale, and it comes off with a scouring powder like Bon Ami and a damp cloth. Vinegar dissolves mineral scale and soap scum, but it is not a disinfectant, and it will etch marble and travertine and dull a sealed hardwood finish. Keep it away from stone.

Each bedroom: 10 to 15 minutes

• Strip and change the sheets. Once a week if someone sleeps hot or has allergies, every other week otherwise is fine.
• Dust the nightstands, the dresser top and the window sills with a damp microfiber cloth. Dry dusting moves dust around instead of picking it up.
• Clear the floor, then vacuum, including under the bed if you can reach.

Living areas and home office: 20 to 30 minutes

• Put things away first. Cleaning around clutter doubles the time and looks worse when you finish.
• Dust shelves, tables, the TV stand and screens. Use a dry microfiber cloth on screens and nothing else.
• Wipe the light switches, door handles and the remote. These get touched constantly and cleaned almost never.
• Vacuum the carpet and rugs, and the sofa cushions if you have pets.
• Sweep and mop the hard floors. On sealed hardwood we use Bona, which is made for the finish and will not leave the haze that all purpose sprays do.

Entry and laundry: 10 minutes

• Shake out the entry mat and sweep the floor. A lot of the dirt in a house arrives on shoes, and the entry catches most of it before it spreads.
• Empty the dryer lint trap. This is a fire safety item, not a tidiness one.
• Wipe the tops of the washer and dryer and leave the washer door open to dry.

Monthly: about an hour total

• Wipe the full cabinet fronts, not just around the handles.
• Clear out the fridge and wipe the shelves and drawers.
• Run a cleaning cycle in the dishwasher and clear the filter at the bottom. A clogged filter is the usual reason dishes come out gritty.
• Dust ceiling fan blades and the tops of door frames.
• Wash the shower curtain liner or replace it.
• Vacuum the upholstery and under the sofa cushions.
• Check the furnace filter. In a Portland house with pets, monthly is not too often.

Twice a year

This is the list we suggest people schedule as a deep clean about twice a year, whether they do it themselves or book it. It is real work and it is slow.

• Interior windows and window tracks.
• Baseboards, door frames and door panels, washed rather than dusted.
• Inside the oven. If you want us to do this, run the self clean cycle one or two days before the visit so the residue is ash we can wipe out.
• Inside kitchen cabinets and drawers.
• Behind and under the fridge and the stove.
• Light fixtures you can reach safely from a two step stool.
• Grout in the kitchen and bathrooms.

What you can skip

Checklists get long because nobody wants to leave anything off. Here is what we think you can drop.

• Wiping the inside of cabinets weekly. Twice a year is plenty unless something spills.
• Washing exterior windows on a schedule. In Portland the rain undoes it. Once in late spring is enough.
• Disinfecting every surface in the house. Countertops where raw meat has been and bathroom fixtures are worth disinfecting. A bookshelf is not. If you do want a real disinfectant that is not chlorine bleach, 3 percent hydrogen peroxide straight from the brown bottle is the one household basic that genuinely qualifies.
• Buying houseplants to clean the air. They look nice. The air cleaning effect in a normal room is too small to matter. Opening a window does more.
• Mixing your own vinegar and baking soda cleaner. They cancel each other out into salty water and fizz. If you want recipes that actually hold up, we went through which ones work and which do not in our guide to natural cleaning recipes.

What we use

Mrs. Meyer’s for general surfaces, Bona for hardwood, Bon Ami for scouring. Washable microfiber cloths instead of paper towels, and our own vacuums with HEPA filtration. No bleach, no ammonia, no synthetic fragrance, and that has not changed since 2005. Fragrance is a common asthma trigger, and a house does not need to smell like anything in particular to be clean.

Where a cleaning service fits

Plenty of people run this checklist themselves and never need us. The common pattern for our clients is that we handle the weekly or every other week list, and they keep up the ten minute daily habits in between. That split works because the daily part cannot be outsourced and the weekly part is the part that eats a Saturday.

Some things stay on your list either way. We do not shampoo carpets, clean inside fireplaces, handle pet messes or body fluids, clean litter boxes, do dishes, or clean outdoor surfaces like patios, decks and exterior windows. We do not move furniture over 20 pounds or clean above eight feet, which rules out chandeliers. Those are limits we set on purpose, and we would rather tell you now than on the day.

If you want the weekly list off your plate, our house cleaning service covers the Portland Metro area, Monday through Friday between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM. The minimum is a two hour visit at a $133 minimum service charge, and the same cleaners come back to your home each time. A quote costs nothing. Call 1 888 404 7930 or send us the details of your home and we will tell you what it would take.