Top 10 Best Household Chore Shortcuts

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:47:00 GMT

Am I the only one who finds weekends far more exhausting than the M-F routine? Weekends often become the Great Chore Pile-On as we rush around catching up on all the things we didn't get done during the week. Forget about a day of rest, how about a day of less work?

Here are 10 household chore shortcuts that won't win you homemaker of the year, but will buy you more time to hang with your kids in the pool:

1. Floors - With the occasional sweep-up, even dusty old wood floors look okay from far enough away. Carpets are grand because unless they're white, you can run a little sweeper once every other week and be just fine. Better yet, just train your eyes away from the floor altogether. Pretty soon you won't mind at all.

2. Laundry - Laundry is tricky. You obviously need enough clothing for you and your little ones, but most of us have enough items kicking around that laundry can be ignored for quite awhile. In my house, we're embracing the beauty of the spot clean. If the laundry pile gets too high, just chuck the piles into the washer or dryer so at least you don't have to look at it.

3. Oven - If you don't have one of those self-cleaning types, why poison yourself and your loved ones with oven cleaner when a quick wipe out will usually do? If it starts smoking, time to start having more takeout.

4. Tubs & Showers - The beauty of tubs and showers is that they are usually hidden away from visiting guests. If necessary, you can run a quick cloth soaked in Windex around the worst spots and hope for the best.

5. Refrigerator - Now this is an appliance that needs to have a self-cleaning capability. I'll admit to washing ours out only every 6 months or so. The only shortcut I've found is dishsoap on some paper towels.

6. Family Car - Our car gets so grimy with crackers and spilled milk that it smells like a bucket full of week-old fish. We only vacuum it out when we see ants. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. The upside is public transportation or walking looks awfully good by comparison.

7. Kids' Rooms - The nice thing about young kids is that they usually litter most in the public areas. On the off chance your kids' room is a cyclone depot for toys, you can always shove everything into the closet, in case of grandparents visiting or other guests.

8. Closets - You probably shouldn't clean these out ever, especially since this is the place you can stash your overflow from all the other rooms you aren't cleaning.

9. Basements & Garages - If you're in the suburbs or exurbs chances are you have one or the other of these monolithic monstrosities and they're full of crap a mile high. We had a garage sale a few weeks back and in some mystery of the material universe we actually appear to have more stuff covering every square inch now than before. The best plan here is to put everything in a pick-up and haul it to Goodwill or the like.

10. Windows - Dirty windows are a pane (har har!), but when you have kids, it's easy to blame the fingerprints on them anyway. Once a year, we hire this nice man to climb up a huge ladder and clean ours inside and out. So for at least two days a year, we can see the sky from our living room windows.

What chores do you skip or scrimp on?

Strollerderby : chores to leave behind

Top 10 Best Household Chore Shortcuts