How Busy Families Can Clean the House Together

And did I mention a near crawling baby? Lately, with less restrictions on our lives, we’re about to have our first non-family houseguests in a long time and I can’t wait to welcome them. The last 14 months have been interesting, but one thing I’ve loved is getting on the same page as my husband in terms of how clean and organized we want a house to be. It’s really hard to enforce, with busy jobs, a baby, dogs out in perpetual mud season, and kids who love to leave books and toys everywhere, but we’re a united front. We’re a team. And everything gets done faster when we do it together. And bonus points when we get the kids to help us as well. It can happen!

How Busy Families Can Clean the House Together:

Summer is getting close, isn’t it? We’ve been having summer-like weather here in New England, and that’s a little weird, because we’ve had to turn our HEAT on in May. Heat! That said, winter has taken its toll, and here we are – opening our home and our world a little more than before. We’re working on deep cleaning our entire house, inside and out. And that means our fairly new deck, and our fairly new patio as well. We love letting the outdoor elements in – and I’m talking open windows, natural flooring, woodsy themes, and cleaning products that smell like summer.

The Products!

The cleaning products are a key feature in family cleaning time. And you can wake up the whole house with the scents of summer in PINALEN^® products! Did you know that a recent PINALEN survey of U.S. consumers found that 79% prefer scented cleaning products and 65% enjoying the smell of a clean house? We love PINALEN Original Multipurpose Cleaner, which has more than five times the pine oil power. Use it in your house, and outdoors, to freshen, clean, and degrease.

PINALEN Original Multipurpose Cleaner uses the power of real pine oil, and it contains five times the amount of real pine oil as other leading pine cleaners. This gives the cleaner an aromatic real scent, and it also has powerful cleaning power. For some other benefits, the formula is biodegradable, and the pine oil is ethically harvested, which means that no trees are harmed in its extraction for the product. It’s a powerful degreaser that deep cleans, deodorizes surfaces, eliminates bad odors, AND removes stains. It cleans everywhere and everything.

Some PINALEN Multipurpose Cleaner Uses You’ll Love!

Did you know that the website has a whopping 181 uses for this multipurpose cleaner? Luckily, I won’t name all 181 (but I do encourage you to download the list), but here are some favorites:

• Use it to remove grease from eyeglasses (frame and glass). Mix 1 Tbsp in 1 1/4 cup (10 fl oz) of water, apply, rinse thoroughly with water, and wipe dry.

• Use it to clean dust and dirt on fans! Mix 1/4 cup (2 fl oz.) in a half gallon (64 fl oz) of water, apply, and rinse.

• You can use it to clean plastic balls and toys – Mix 5 tsp in 2 cups (16 fl oz) of water, apply it directly to toys, and then clean with a cloth.

And for my favorite, it cleans floors, as you can imagine, but also cleans mops! You simply mix 1 cup (8 fl oz) in a bucket with 1 3/4 gallons (224 fl oz) of water, insert your mop, let it stand overnight, scrub, and rinse.

Other PINALEN Products We Love:

• PINALEN Max Aromas Floral Delight – This has the benefits of the original formula, and with scent boost technology and long lasting freshness.

• PINALEN Max Power (To Go) – These wipes have attractive and long lasting aromas, are easy to use, and will deep clean, cut grease, and eliminate bad odors. I have them everywhere, especially in the car.

• PINALEN Dishwashing Liquid – This is safe for sensitive skin, tough on grease, removes stuck on food, cleans up to 1200 clean dishes per bottle, has an Acti-Sense fragrance, and is deramtologist tested.

Tips on Having the Family Clean Together:

1 – Model good cleaning behavior. This one was tough love for me, but I was befuddled by my kids being a bit of a mess, when I was being one too! Once I got on board with being serious about these skills, it helped my kids jump in as well.

2 – You need to determine clutter vs messes. If it’s clutter, it may be time to throw away or donate items. We have a rule here, that we break often, but at least we KNOW that when more “stuff” is coming into the house than leaving it, you’ll never get ahead of clutter.

3 – Get cleaning faster together by making it into a game. We like to set a 10 minute timer with all hands on deck, to see how much we can accomplish. It actually doesn’t take a lot of time or effort when you clean this way, and if you do a little each day, you’ll have consistent results.

4 – Focus first on must-clean areas, like the kitchen counter. This time of year attracts ants, and the kitchen is always subject to more bacteria. Other high touch areas are dirty dishes, clothes in hampers, the mud room, bathrooms, etc.

5 – Work with your kids. Offer age-appropriate tasks, and they can often do more than you even know. Similarly, especially with the little ones, offer them a choice of two or three tasks so they can feel like they are making their own choices when you clean the house together. Then, incentives can help. It doesn’t have to be an allowance or toy reward – what about an ice cream or ice pop treat after you clean the house together?

6- Here’s a bonus tip. Use kid-approved products. The thing about PINALEN products is that they have fun and fresh aromas, and that helps the process. The kids get excited about pine smell (because who wouldn’t??) but I also find that they love the smells of all of the products we use, like with the dish washing formula, and the to go wipes.