Christmas in July 2021.....July 5th

[sweetpumkinpye]

Continuing planning week, today we look at cleaning for the holidays.

There are many cleaning plans around now a days. Do you follow the HGP, the House and Holiday Plan or have you come up with your own plan that works best for your own home?
Most plans start many weeks prior to December which leaves us enough time to clean and organise every space in our home. Whatever plan you follow it certainly makes the lead up to the holidays much easier if the home is clean, organised and fully prepared well ahead of time.

Start by printing off the cleaning plan that you intend to follow and add it to your planner.
Write a list of the cleaning supplies that you most often use in your home. If supplies need replacing make a note on your shopping list.
As you go room by room, make note of any repairs that are needed, are the repairs something you can manage or do you need a repairman? Does anything need to be replaced?
Do you need to book in a time for the heating (or in my case the aircon) to be serviced, add that to the planner.
Look at preparing some easy meals that can be frozen ahead of time and be used on the nights that you are too tired to prepare a meal for the family.
Leave enough time for weeks where real life gets in the way and you are not able to complete your list for that week.
Ask for help, delegate. Get the family involved in the plan, it is their home too. If you find following a plan becomes too much, or time is in short supply just target the areas that will make the most difference to you.

What hints and tips do you have to share when it comes to cleaning your home for the holidays?

House & Holiday Plan

Meet here to talk about the Houseworks Holiday Plan developed and written by CEO at organizedchristmas.com

magicalholidayhome.com

Holiday Grand Plan

Here's a place to discuss the Holiday Grand Plan by Katie Leckey with printable forms by CEO

magicalholidayhome.com

 

[MrsSoup]

I have always struggled following these plans. We are usually in military housing and can only do so much, or don't have some of the areas mentioned due to the layout of the houses. However, now that we are in OUR house and it's a more traditional house layout I am going to try again to choose one that will work for me, especially since I will be working now. I'll be looking at them early to make a decision before they start so i'm not floudering. I want to be well prepared this year, especially since we are hosting.

 

[luludou]

I do a deep spring-cleaning of main floor in Spring. In Fall I concentrate on the basement and getting ready for Christmas. I don't follow the plans - I tried, just doesn't work but I like to keep them up there as a reminder. I do my own plan.

 

[Myron's Mom]

I “kinda” follow the House and Holiday plan. I don’t exactly follow it but it keeps me on track to get things done. I’m finding as I get older I need more help from my husband. I can no longer manage the curtains or cleaning the light fixtures alone. Any thing at all that includes a step ladder is now a 2 man job or he at least needs to be here. He’s good about helping but I have to plan things for when he is home.

We routinely have our heating/ cooling serviced in the fall. Rick will service the whole house generator then and have the propane tank for it topped off. Water system is always done in the spring.

I do need to get the carpets cleaned. I’ll have that done in September or October. I hope the company survived covid. And I just put a reminder in my planner for that!

 

[housewife2]

i kinda follow the plan but then i do my own as needed. so ready for the holidays. i need to find a place for a tree in the living room. i have one in the dining room which you can see from the living room . but i want - need one in the living room.

 

[sweetpumkinpye]

Over ther years I have developed my own plan with it's origins from the HGP. Living in Australia our homes are really different to yours. Normally all on one floor, no basements, no attics and most of the plans include a week for these rooms. I do have 2 living areas and a study so have adapted the plan to add those plus I have added the backyard as coming into Christmas which is Summer for us, we use the backyard a lot.

 

[Holiday_Mom]

The House and Holiday Plan is the one that I use. The set up works more like the way my mind works. When I first started I had young children and now I have one teenager living at home full time. I'm curious to see how it works for me this year. I like to work on the cleaning plan when I have the house to myself for a little bit. Last year was impossible to work on the plan with online learning and working from home. I had to work around everyone's schedule. It seems that in-person will be happening this school year but working from home looks like it will be permanent. I have to figure out when I will be working on the plan.

 

[missjane]

I need to look at both plans again and choose which I'll use or if it will be a modified version. I had one I created myself that combined the two for the old house and didn't really do one last year. Since I did some deep cleaning before hosting the family reunion, there won't be a lot of that to do. There are some maintenance issues that need to be dealt with...a couple of cracked window panes that were there before we moved in. There's some caulking that needs to be done. I want to replace the mini blinds in the third bedroom with 2-inch plantation blinds - that's what is on all the other windows in the house. There are ceiling fans in the bedrooms that work fine, but are definitely 1980s style that I would love to upgrade, but I'm not so sure if we'll do that at this time. DH hates replacing them.

 

[Ahorsesoul]

There are ceiling fans in the bedrooms that work fine, but are definitely 1980s style that I would love to upgrade, but I'm not so sure if we'll do that at this time. DH hates replacing them.

Could you just replace the blades for a quick update?

 

[Miss JoDee]

Could you just replace the blades for a quick update?

Sometimes you can flip the blade and I know you can paint them. I have Mauve and Teal fans in our bedroom and would love to change them out but same story DH hates to work with electricity. Maybe I can talk DS into it Need to find what I like first.

 

[Miss JoDee]

I need to start a maintenance list I want to do before the snow flies. I know it will be a short list. 2-3 major/minor projects depending on if you are asking, DH or neighbor who said he would help me with one when I was ready. I offered to barter with him.

 

[sweetpumkinpye]

My home isn't too bad. I need to work in the garden and garage. Would love to order a skip bin and toss out some things. DH is less enthusiastic.

 

[missjane]

Could you just replace the blades for a quick update?

I hadn't thought of that, but the body of the fan is bronze and has roses embossed on it, so it's really dated by that, too. I may give it a try, though. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[kringle]

Jane- In our last house and this one, too, the fans were still good but really ugly. So I used a metal paint (oil rubbed bronze on some and pearl white on others) on the metal parts and painted the blades. Krylon has the metal looking paints in all kinds of finishes in both spray and canned so you can use it for things you can't take down and paint outside. Between that and changing out the bulbs and covers, it updated my fans while we focused on other projects that felt more urgent. One of these days I'll probably buy new ones but this was a cheap and easy fix for our ugly fans. I hope this helps.

 

[missjane]

Chris, I've used the metal paint on switch face plates before, and it did well. The center of the fan blades are that wicker looking stuff. While I like wicker (for porch furniture), I don't like it on the fan blades. The wicker embellishment is a simple thin sheet inlaid into the center with glue. I have thought I may be able to take veneer and cover it, but it would take some work to get it the correct thickness to fill the indentation where the wicker is and caulking to get rid of the seam created. I'm not sure it's worth all that time and trouble. They are very 1980s fans! lol Ha....a thought just came to me...I wonder if the blades are reversible???

 

[Miss JoDee]

Chris, I've used the metal paint on switch face plates before, and it did well. The center of the fan blades are that wicker looking stuff. While I like wicker (for porch furniture), I don't like it on the fan blades. The wicker embellishment is a simple thin sheet inlaid into the center with glue. I have thought I may be able to take veneer and cover it, but it would take some work to get it the correct thickness to fill the indentation where the wicker is and caulking to get rid of the seam created. I'm not sure it's worth all that time and trouble. They are very 1980s fans! lol Ha....a thought just came to me...I wonder if the blades are reversible???

Jane you should be able to turn your blades over. I think I did that when I had some with wicker on them.

 

[sweetpumkinpye]

...I wonder if the blades are reversible???

Give it a try. The ones we have had here have been reversible and quite easy to change around. Let us know how you do.

 

[AuntJamelle]

I'm a HGP girl all the way. Nostalgia mainly LOL

I get really excited during Front Porch week!

I have created an HGP word doc for myself that I resave and tweak from year to year. Each week listed in order, with the dates for that year, then all my cleaning tasks and holiday prep tasks. As time goes on I tweak as needed as the house changes, needs change, new ideas or lessons learned come into play.

I typically start out strong - most years I do make it to Dining Room week - mostly... but I tell myself some of it is better than none of it!!!

 

[sweetpumkinpye]

I typically start out strong - most years I do make it to Dining Room week - mostly... but I tell myself some of it is better than none of it!!!

I too have adjusted to suit my home. I have never finished the whole plan, something always buggars it up. I am hopeful for this year.