New to Branches? Here's how it works:

Think of your home as a tree and each room is a branch of that tree.

First, break the house up into branches (manageable areas), which can be DEEP cleaned in a week's time.

For each branch, compile a list of all the tasks you'll need to do to get that room to SPARKLE! This includes cleaning, dusting and vacuuming the areas behind and under furniture, washing windows and curtains, etc.

Also, put together a Weekly Cleaning List to keep things looking good. Each week, finish your Weekly Cleaning THEN focus on doing some deep cleaning in this week's branch.

Cycle through the branches, one per week, to maintain a high level of cleanliness throughout the house.

Here's the schedule of Branches we'll be following:

Week 1: Entry/Living Room
Week 2: Dining Room/Laundry Room
Week 3: Bathrooms/Front Porch
Week 4: Kitchen/Back Porch
Week 5: Children’s Room/Guest Room + Closets for those rooms
Week 6: Family Room/Room of choice
Week 7: Master Bedroom/Master Closet
Week 8: All House Cleaning

Some sample "Choice" Rooms:
Office, Pantry, Craft Room, Garage, Attic, etc.

Make your master and individual branch lists work for YOU. The lists we share here are just our own examples; yours should be designed to suit your own home and situation.

If the branch you're working on needs decluttering, focus on that first. It's much easier to clean a room that doesn't have piles and boxes everywhere. Even if the whole house needs decluttering, this is a good way to focus on a room at a time on a regular schedule.

This isn't a competition. Just go at your own pace, as that will be exactly right for you. We are all here to support and encourage one another.

Start with a new branch each week. If you don't finish all the tasks on your branch list for the week, that's OK--you're already ahead of where you were before, and the unfinished tasks will still be there for you when you cycle back to this branch. If you finish early one week, you can go back to work on previous branches.

Don't overload yourself too much every week. The goal is to do a little bit at a time. Spend just 15 – 30 minutes per day in your branch. You should also find that “branch” cleaning gets easier once you've been doing it for a while.

Our newbie “Branchers” have accomplished a lot, and you can too! Start by posting your branch list for the week here, and work along with us.

I am not sure how this works since I have never done it and it is my 1st post for one of these. So I am going to just make my list and go from there. I have a pretty clean house but an over all clean will be good. I have 3 rooms I really want to focus on so that is what I am going to do.

My 1st room will be the
Bathroom
~~Clean out the linen closet
~~Clean out under the sink and medicine cabinet
~~Scrub the tub
~~Scrub the Sink and toliet
~~Wash bathmat
~~Put away towels (go thru and see if any need to go)
~~make a list of things we need for the bathroom
~~Dust
~~Mop
~~Sweep baskets
~~Go thru make up
~~Windex window
~~Windex mirror

Family Room
~~Move out furniture and sweep behind and under
~~Dust walls
~~Dust ceiling fan
~~Windex window
~~Dust
~~Wash blankets
~~Change out curtains
~~Dust baskets
~~Windex tv
~~sweep lamp shades
~~Go thru dog and cat toys (see if there are any that need to be donated or thrown away)
~~Go thru country decor and put what don't want into a box to take to my friends for our exchange
~~~Windex pictures

Now the biggest and hardest room will be the kitchen for some reason when I clean out the cabinets they seem to just fill up again not sure how come either.

~~Clean and organize all cabinets
~~Go thru food and get rid of what we don't eat or need take to food pantry, throw away any out dated
~~Go thru spices
~~clean out fridge/freezer scrub out completely
~~scrub sink
~~windex windows
~~dust blinds
~~dust baskets
~~go thru kitchen towels
~~Mop floor
~~wash rugs
~~wash dog bowls

Ok I don't know if I did this right or not. But this is what I am going to work on. I want to get rid of at least 10 things thru all this maybe more but that is not including my country things. Since I want to change to a beachy feel and more modern feel in my home it is a good time to clean up.

Hope this is right!! Thanks for letting me join if I get all this done I will start upstairs. Yuck!! But no one but us goes up there so for us it is ok just a little messy.

Shell: There's really no right way or wrong way. Just whatever works for you.

In general, we take one room or section (branch) of the house and concentrate on that room or section (branch) during that week - decluttering and deep cleaning. Then, we maintain that room with our regular weekly cleaning routines while we move on to the next branch.

Sometimes we can't finish everything we want to do in that branch during the week. That's OK - we can get to those tasks when the branch comes around again, or, whenever we have time.

If a particular room requires longer than a week, then, we make that room our Room of the Month (the thread for that is over in the Motivation and Goals forum) and work on it for a month (some rooms take longer than a month and that's OK, too, while a few of us seem to have a Room of the Year - mine's the garage!).

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The all-house branch comes at a good time for me (funny how each branch seems to come up at just the right time!) - it was so hot this past week that I didn't keep up with my weekly cleaning schedule. So, I've a bit of "catching" up to do:

- Living room: Dust/Vacuum
- Dining room: Dust/Vacuum
- Laundry room: Sweep, tidy up
- Bathrooms: Cleaned one yesterday; need to clean the other
- Kitchen: Cleaned it this morning! - wiped counters & stove top, cleaned microwave, swept and mopped the floor and shined the sink.
- Child's room: Vacuum; DD wanted to exchange one of her bookcases for one of mine - will see if she wants to do that this week.
- Guest room: Dust/vacuum; exchange the bookcase with DD's?
- Family room: Sweep, dust, clean sliding glass door
- Master bedroom: Dust/vacuum; tidy closet

Welcome Shell, this is a great site where everyone helps with ideas and suggestions. I sure hope you give yourself giant rewards as you get an incredible amount done.

Whole House is pretty overwhelming for me. I have been picking a specific issue and concentrating on possible solutions. Last time I worked on 'Hot Spots,' those places that get messy day after day. There was always stuff waiting at the bottom of the stairs to go up or stuff on the landing waiting to go down. When I asked Why...everyone said they didn't know what to do with the stuff that wasn't their stuff. Once a specific spot was designated...the problem vanished. I've since discovered that 90% related to home office paperwork.

Another time I concentrated on 'Flat' surfaces; bench at entry, top of washer/dryer, coffee table, island counter, ensuite vanity counter & top of printer. What stood out was that nite tables, bureaus/dressers tops, desks or other bthrm counters didn't get stacks/piles.

This week I'm purging under the bed containers, toss items to donations; some stuff needs a more convenient location to be more useful. Guests expected, plan to power wash windows. Need to plan desserts that are cool and refreshing

Well I got the bathroom done but I did start that yesterday but the power went out and didn't get it done. I am about 1/2 way done with the familyroom (it isn't a very big room). Almost done with it but just have a few more things. I decided to switch out my lamps and a few other things. Cause I am sick of my country decor and want a more beachy modern look that is going to take some work.

I still will have the kitchen to do and that will take some time. I am working on the whole downstairs this week. I figure that will keep me busy. Thanks for the welcome everyone

Cleaned the 2nd bathroom.

Just home from holidays and needing to join in once again...

The house was left *as is* and so I have my work cut out for me. Dh kept it fairly well and did do a few things so its generally in a bit better shape than what I left it in.

My plan of attack is: Do a 15 min session/day tackling one room/area at a time. This will be to declutter/work on hotspots. and to do my general cleaning.

*15min/day declutter
*clean floors
*clean bathrooms
*laundry/ironing
*dishes washed
*counters/table clean
*trash out
*dust (DUST ????!!!!)

Then hopefully, I will be *organized* enough to start with the next branch next week.

Been doing things I have put off for quite awhile today.
That is because I am actually home!

First off, I sorted thru the rest of the VHS tapes, and moved them to another cabinet. Sorted thru the CDs that needed to be put in the vinyl holders, and kept the jewel cases for my acrylic stamps.

I also cleaned out the desk and above the desk cabinets. Sorted thru and donated a bunch of "free cards" sent to me.

Straightened out the pantry, and put the laundry in my room.
Will put that away before bed tonight. Now I need to relax a few and think about what else I can accomplish today. Will be gone ALL day tomorrow, from early morning to late at night.
Have classes and DGS's birthday dinner.

Been trying to put things away the past couple of days instead of JUST FOR NOW, leaving piles here and there....walking the extra steps to put the items where they belong and really trying to stick to ETEing thoroughly! Wish me luck!

Update:

- Living room: DONE
- Dining room: DONE
- Laundry room: Sweep, tidy up - NEXT TIME
- Bathrooms: DONE
- Kitchen: DONE
- Child's room: NEXT WEEK
- Guest room: DONE; emptied the bookcase that is to go to DD's room
- Family room: DONE
- Master bedroom: DONE