In my younger years as a stay-at-home mother with several young children running underfoot, I literally stumbled upon a cleaning method referred to as the Mount Vernon method of cleaning. It was developed by two women who were the caretakers of the actual Mount Vernon estate, and they had taken their housekeeping chores and condensed them into an easy-to-apply method appropriate for any seemingly monumental cleaning task.
While my house was not even a fraction of the size of the Mount Vernon estate, cleaning it seemed monumental to me. Yet, this method of cleaning literally cut my spring cleaning tasks down to a manageable size and kept me from feeling pressured or overwhelmed to get everything accomplished in one day.
I now call it the “Divide and Conquer” method of spring cleaning and use this method even today – now 20 years later.
The concept of this method of cleaning is to divide your house into sections – living room, dining room, bathrooms, master bedroom, all other bedrooms, storage, kitchen, garage, attic, etc. You can even subdivide the sections if it seems you will need to focus on one particular area more than others. (For instance, we had a huge bookshelf/cabinet area in our living room at one time, and I considered this to be a section all on its own since it would require a lot of sorting, dusting and rearranging.)
Once you have your house divided into sections, decide how much time you want to devote to spring cleaning. Will you tackle one section a day, three sections a day or one section per week? It’s completely up to you how you want to accomplish this. I decided to divide my home into five sections (combining the living room and kitchen into one section, the 2 bathrooms into another, etc., etc.) and planned to devote 3-4 hours per section each day for 5 consecutive days. I usually start the day before by giving the house a general cleaning so that my regular tasks do not fall behind during the spring cleaning sessions. I limit the time to 3-4 hours per day so that I will be motivated to work quickly but also not get so exhausted that I cannot do anything else the rest of the day.
Now that you have the house divided into sections, choose a section in which to begin. The method is the same for each section, so you will repeat the following instructions as you move from section to section.
Start in one corner of each section and work clockwise around the section – from top to bottom, and starting outward and working inward toward the center of the section or room(s). You will dust, mop, vacuum and wash as you go – including walls and ceilings, if needed. Be sure to look up to include lighting fixtures and ceiling fans. Look down to get baseboards, rugs, carpets and other areas near the floor. In the center of the section or room, you will place three boxes or large bags (more if needed). One box is for trash, another for items to donate or give-away, and a third box for items that can be sold in a yard sale, a consignment store, on E-bay or moved into storage or converted for use in another section of the house.
Be sure to have all your cleaning supplies ready, too. You may want to dry clean or wash curtains, rugs and blankets, so prepare for this in advance. You may also want to use a steam cleaning machine for carpets or hire a professional carpet cleaner. If you can enlist the help of older children or hire a maid for a day or two, this is a good time to do so – your helper can be washing walls, mopping floors, etc., while you sort through items to place in your three discard boxes.
While you are cleaning, keep in mind that the best way to keep things clean is to find a place for everything. Make a list of repairs that you may discover – a hole in the wall that needs patching, a light bulb that needs replacing, etc. These repairs can be made at a future date, and you will have a list to plan for materials to make the repairs.
As the saying goes, you can eat a whole elephant by taking one bite at a time. The Divide and Conquer method of cleaning will help you tackle your spring cleaning tasks in the same manner – one “bite” at a time.
