My fall cleaning checklist (indoors and outdoors)

 I live in a detached house with a pretty larger garden. In this post, I'm going to share my cleaning routine for this time of the year.

What I do indoors

I do some cleaning every day, so I don't really have a special seasonal cleaning routine. I vacuum the floors and the rugs every day and I mop the floors every other day. I have a soft plush blanket to cover the sofa with - this is what I use to protect the sofa from stains and I wash it every other week. I have a small kid, two cats and a dog on board, so juice or tea might get spilt and the cats sleep on the sofa every day. I also dust the shelves every week, so we can say that the house is okay most of the time.

I have an all-year-round wardrobe which means that I wear the same clothes every season. In the fall/winter I wear T-shirts and tank tops with cardigans or sweaters, and I wear my skirts and dresses with leggings or thermo tights, so I don't really have to deal with putting away my summer clothes. All I have to do is put my sandals into a box, take them to the garage and pull out my ankle boots.

There is one thing I never skip in the fall: I wash the curtains. The windows are open almost all day every day in the summer, so the scent of flowers lingers in the house as well, but when the temperature gets cooler and I close the windows, I like to have a nice, freshly-washed-curtain scent in the house. I hate climbing up the ladder when I'm alone, so I usually ask my mom to come over and be there with me, just in case.

We have radiators in the house and they can get pretty on the inside during the summer. For me, nothing is worse than turning the heating on and having that burnt dust smell in the house. Therefore, before the heating season starts, I vacuum the radiators and wipe them with a mixture of tap water, a tiny bit of dish soap and some essential oil.

What I do outdoors

In the garden, we have grass, bushes, trees and flowers, so there's quite a lot to do there. The last mow of the gardening season is in early or mid-October. (I did it last week actually and I'm not planning to do it again until the spring.) Once I finished mowing the lawn, I make sure to pick up every single bunch of dead grass to prevent fungus in the grass. Finally, I rake the dead leaves and pull out every remaining weed that is hiding among the bushes. I also rake the soil around the bushes and flowers because they like loose soil more.

We have a small vegetable garden, so I pull out the weeds and every plant that won't survive the winter or that is already dead. We have a brown garbage container, especially for green waste. I put all the cut grass, dead plants, weeds, etc. in the brown container, which is emptied every Tuesday from spring to early fall. In November, it will be emptied every other week, and only once in December (right after Christmas when the dustmen come to collect the discarded Christmas trees).

I like to give areas covered with paving stones a thorough sweep. If there are any plant pieces on them and they get wet by the rain, fog or frost, they can look pretty disgusting and they also tend to cause discolouration on the stones.

I check the surroundings of the garbage container area for tracks of mice. You might think "What???", but unfortunately, we have mice around the house in the fall and our dog goes crazy if he sees them. A few years ago, some mice even moved into our garage, chewed some stuff there, causing some financial damage. If I find anything mouse-related, I carefully clean it up and apply some deodorizing spray to the area. I have one that eliminates the smell of animals.

The most unpleasant task is to put away the garden furniture (one wooden table and two matching chairs). All the items are foldable so they don't take up too much space in the garage, but the terrace, where we use them in the summer and the garage where I store in the winter are quite far from each other, and let me tell you, carrying a wooden table and then the two wooden chairs is quite a workout.

We have an automatic watering system which needs some attention. The water has to be removed from it, otherwise, it freezes inside the pipes, causing irreparable damage. The problem is that you need a compressor to remove the water and I don't have one, so I usually hire a gardener to do it for me. This is the only thing I can't deal with alone and I'm super proud of myself.

That's all I do it prepare the house and the garden for fall. What is your fall routine like?

Food photo created by wirestock - www.freepik.com