Living Room Cleaning Checklist: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly

Keeping your living room area clean is essential, whether you have a formal living room space, or a more relaxed setting for entertaining your family, friends, and kids.

We’re sharing examples of the daily, weekly, and monthly (and deep clean) living room cleaning checklists that the expert cleaners on Homeaglow use to keep these busy rooms spotless.

If you don’t have time to keep your living room clean, you can always book a professional, affordable cleaner on Homeaglow.

You can see what's included in a standard Homeaglow cleaning here.

Daily living room cleaning checklist

Keeping the mess down in your living room on a daily basis can save you a ton of time later on when it’s time to do weekly or monthly cleaning. This checklist can be easily ticked off in 5-10 minutes at the end of each day.

• Remove dirty plates and glasses
• Throw away trash
• Fold blankets and straighten cushions
• Wipe the coffee table
• Pick up any books, toys, or other items on the floor

Weekly living room cleaning checklist

• Dust plants, picture frames, mirrors, lamps, windowsills
• Vacuum underneath couch cushions
• Vacuum, sweep, or mop the floor
• Wipe down door handles, light switches, and remotes
• Wipe down all furniture surfaces

Monthly living room cleaning checklist

• Dust ceiling fan
• Remove cobwebs from ceiling
• Dust walls and baseboards
• Dust the blinds

Deep cleaning living room checklist

We recommend deep cleaning your living room during spring and fall. This will ensure your room looks fantastic (at least twice a year!) while removing deeper dust and dirt, and taking care of those places that you’ve forgotten to clean on a more regular basis.

• Wipe down ceiling and ceiling fan
• Remove and clean light fixtures
• Steam clean and shampoo carpets and rugs
• Clean silverware
• Freshen and sanitize upholstery
• Wash blankets, couch coverings, and cushions
• Polish wooden furniture
• Wash curtains
• Wipe down blinds
• Wipe down the insides of drawers, cupboards, and shelves
• Clean windows inside and out
• Reduce clutter
• Wash walls and baseboards
• Check smoke alarm batteries

6 steps to keep your living room spotless

These are the most important steps for keeping your living room fresh, tidy, and hygienic from top to bottom.

Firstly, always dust and clean from the top to bottom of the room. And move from one side of the room to the other while you’re cleaning. This will lessen the chance of you missing a spot, or having to clean things twice.

1. Ditch the clutter

Clutter is one of the things that can turn a normal living room into a nightmare. Whether you choose to do this daily, weekly, or less often, make sure all the things in your living room are actually supposed to be there.

Remove any toys, books, clothing, and other bits and pieces that belong somewhere else in your home, and put them where they are supposed to go.

During your deep cleaning sessions, survey the room for things that could be thrown away or donated. Minimizing the items in your living room will also minimize the mess, making it much easier to tidy up in the future. 

2. Clean windows inside and outside

Windows often get overlooked in cleaning sessions, but we recommend you attend to cleaning these quarterly, at the very least.

For interior window cleaning, first, dust them with a rag or towel to remove any dust and cobwebs. Then use your favorite glass cleaner and a lint-free cloth to get the glass clean and dry. If your windows remain streaky, spray and buff the glass clean once more with the glass cleaner.

You may need to call in the experts to clean the outside of your windows if they’re too high, but if you can reach them safely, you can use the same cleaning process to clean the exterior of your living room windows.

Tip: If you have any sticky gunk on your windows, read our article on removing sticker residue from glass. 

3. Wipe down walls and baseboards

Pay attention to your walls and baseboards in the living room, as these can attract a lot of dust, and inspect spots, finger marks, and cobwebs that can detract from the overall look of your home.

Dust baseboards regularly, and brush away any cobwebs when you notice them on the walls or ceiling. You can take care of this quickly by using a damp microfiber cloth draped over the head of a mop or broom. For more info, read our mini-guide to cleaning baseboards.

For monthly or deep cleaning sessions, use a spray bottle of water with a small squirt of liquid dish soap in it as an easy, DIY wall-cleaning solution. You can spray this mixture directly on the walls, and then wipe it away with a soft cloth, or spray it onto a cloth to begin cleaning the walls from top to bottom.

Tip: If you’re concerned about damaging your walls, read our mini-guide on cleaning walls without removing paint. 

4. Clean soft furnishings

The soft furnishings in your living room, such as curtains, blinds, cushions, and sofas are high-touch areas that need some extra love and attention at cleaning time.

Upholstery

Make sure you vacuum chairs and couches every week, to get crumbs and dust out from between and underneath the cushions. Who knows, you might even find some forgotten cash down there.

Check care labels to see how your sofas and chairs should be cleaned, as there are varying methods depending if your furniture is fabric, leather, or vinyl. In some cases, steam cleaning is best, while in other cases you should just use a gentle cleaner or detergent to wipe down the surface fabric.

Curtains

Curtains are exposed to constant sunlight, dust, and finger marks, so you should wash them a couple of times a year to keep them clean and prolong their lifespan. 

Check the manufacturer’s instructions that will be hidden in the curtain hem to see if it’s safe to machine wash them, or if they need a dry clean.

Cushions and blankets

Cuddly blankets and pillow covers in your living room should be washed on a monthly basis for hygiene purposes. In most cases, these can be safely washed in a cold cycle in your washing machine. But check the label to see if they can be popped in the dryer or not. Otherwise, you’ll need to choose a fine day for cleaning so they can be line dried.

5. Sanitize surfaces

To keep your family healthy, it’s important that you pay attention to all the surfaces in your living room. And there can be a lot when you stop to look around. 

From light switches to lamp buttons, door handles, remotes, dresser drawer handles, and electronics, you need to be vigilant about wiping and sanitizing every surface to reduce germs and grime that can build up over time.

You can use a multi-purpose bacteria-killing commercial spray for most hard surfaces in your living room, but always check the manufacturer’s instructions just in case.

If you want to mix up a quick DIY surface cleaning spray, we recommend blending a simple solution of 1 ½ cups of water to ¼ cup of vinegar in a spray bottle. Squirt this onto a microfiber cloth and wipe down all the surfaces that get lots of use, but might be overlooked during regular cleanings.

If you don’t like the smell of vinegar, you can add a drop or two of pure essential oil to this mix - or simply keep the windows open while you clean, as the vinegar smell will disappear quite quickly.

6. Keep the floor spotless

The tidiness of your living room floor can make or break all your other cleaning efforts. Plus, a floor cluttered with junk can cause accidents if you have a busy family and fast-moving kids.

Tidy away toys at the end of play sessions, or the end of the day to avoid late-night Legos getting stuck in your feet, and remove any dirty plates or trash that may have found their way onto the floor. 

Hand vacuums and Swiffers can make short work of regularly cleaning your living room floor on a daily basis if needed. But you should ensure you clean this floor thoroughly every week with a broom, mop, or vacuum (depending on your floor type) to remove dust, pet hair, and germs.

For deep cleans, we recommend you steam your floors. If you have carpet, it's best to give them a thorough shampoo with a carpet-safe cleaner, and then steam clean them to finish up. Make sure you do this on a fine, warm day though, as carpets can take a while to dry out.

Keeping your living room clean doesn’t have to take all day

Your living room is one of the most used rooms in your home, and it requires regular attention to stop it looking like a hurricane has rolled through the house. But between work, kids, and having a social life, there’s not much time left for tidying up. 

We hope our checklists help make cleaning your living room a breeze, but if you’d rather leave it to the experts, the Homeaglow team is always available to help out if you need it. Find and book your perfect cleaner online today.