The End of Summer Clean Out (that I swear by every year)

Every year, right around this time, I do the same thing. Not a room-by-room deep clean — a subject-by-subject reset that carries me from the last hot days of summer all the way into the calm I want walking into the holidays. To be clear, the temperature shift is a metaphor when you live in Louisiana. It's hot well into the fall season. But I digress...

Here's the thing most cleaning advice gets wrong when it comes to how my brain works: it tells you to tackle "the kitchen" or "the garage" as if a space is one job. But when it comes to a clean out session, a space is never just one job. It's clothes and paperwork and expired spices and cords with no home. When you go space by space, you open a closet, get overwhelmed by six different categories of stuff, and quit before you've even started.

So instead, I will clean out and tackle it  subject by subject. One category, everywhere in the house, before I move to the next.

CLOSET CLEAN OUT: one at a time until you're done

I start my clean out here because clothes are the easiest yes/no decision of the whole season — and because closets pretty much touch every single room, it feels like a big accomplishment when I'm done! This clean out can sometimes feel like a big task, but it doesn't have to be.

Sometimes, I dedicate a whole Saturday to the task. Other times, it takes me a handful of 20 minute sessions between regular life.

Before you sit down to scroll social media for 20 minutes, ask yourself if there's a 20 minute space you can clean out instead. I promise, you'll feel better.

DROP ZONES: address the madness

This is the category nobody names but everyone has to clean out ...and everyone avoids it. The mud room bench that's become a landing pad for football gear and school laptops. The junk drawer(s). The bathroom cabinet you open and immediately close again (talking directly to my own children here). These are the spots that are unorganized daily — not seasonally — and they're small enough to clean out in an afternoon, but they make an outsized difference in how the house feels to live in on a daily basis.


TIP: If you don't have a space to put what's typically on the mudroom bench? Get a basket with a lid. Baskets literally solve all of my problems.

I've been loving this collection from Rejuvenation lately.

THE NEXT PAIN POINT: this is personal to you

This is where it gets personal to your house and your year. Maybe it's finally tackling pantry organization or the kitchen cabinet clean out you've been avoiding. Because why do I have three spatulas?

Maybe it's the big garage clean out weekend to put on the calendar. Maybe it's the repair list that's been sitting in the notes app since spring — the sticky door, the cabinet hinge, the thing you've just been stepping around. Whatever it is, this is the third "layer" of the four steps I take each year. ...once the closets and the daily chaos zones are handled.

LET'S MOVE OUTSIDE: as the weather turns

By the time I work through my clean out "layers" inside, I'm usually landing somewhere in late September or October — right when I can start pulling the annuals in the flower beds and turning my attention to prepping the outside of the house for fall and winter. It's almost like a little reward knowing the inside of my home is in order and the flower beds and holidays are ready for me!