How to Reset the House for Back-to-School

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After a summer with all of my family at home with me, our house always needs a major reset as we head into the school year and fall months. Check out all of my tips to reset your own space.

While I adore summer, it can wreak havoc on my home. Mid-June, I start noticing that it just doesn’t stay as clean as long as it does during the school year. With my boys home all day, every day (and my husband, who is a principal, home a lot more, too), we just have more dirt and clutter in and out of the house. As the fall approaches, it feels great to do a big ol’ reset and get everything organized and back in order for the year so we start off on a good foot. I love to use Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® products to help me get the place back in shape. Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® believes that your home is what you make it. That’s why they make Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® for all the beautiful things you grow in your home.

We moved into this house at the end of the spring. I knew the hallway that led off of the garage (and connected to the laundry room, television room, and kitchen) would become a mudroom of sorts (or, let’s be real...catch-all?). I did throw up some hooks hurriedly after move-in anticipating the uses of this spot. But honestly, it always looks super untidy...especially with summer gear all over it (and a lovely pile of flip flops on the floor). It just didn’t scream “welcome home” or “have a great day”. We needed a more orderly space to really feel those sentiments. This particular year, resetting the house involved giving this area a mini makeover. I started by washing all of the summer stuff and putting it in our storage and linen closets for next year. Then I pulled all of the school gear out of the same spaces to re-situate in this area.

As I pull out all of the school gear, I try to give it all a good cleaning to freshen it up. I clean out closets, get rid of old clothes that don’t fit, and look over all of the bags. I invested in some nice (hard-lined, easy-to-clean) lunch boxes a couple of years ago. While we may get new backpacks each school year, I still like for my kids to carry these particular lunch boxes since they work so well (they’re the perfect size, too, and still in great shape). Since they’re not fabric, but rather a smooth, seamless interior, I can use my Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® Multi-Surface Spray in Honeysuckle scent on them to clean them out before school starts back up (and every evening they come home!). The Honeysuckle scent is out of this world, y’all...I cleaned my sunroom with it from top to bottom the other day. Every time I walk through there, I smile because it just smells so darn pretty.

One other thing we do is clean all of the lunch making paraphernalia for the school year. After they’ve been cooped up in the cabinet all summer, giving them a little scrub in the sink with Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® Dish Soap makes them smell just lovely. If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know I create bento-style lunches for my kids almost every day. I use all stainless boxes and they’ve lasted me for over six years. I have a big stack of them that I rotate...it feels good to “freshen” them up before a school year. During the year, I do throw them in the dishwasher every night with the Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® Auto Dish Soap.

I also keep the Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® Dish Soap in Basil scent (along with the Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® Hand Soap) on my kitchen sink. Not only do I love the scent, but also the pretty bottles coordinate perfectly with my kitchen.

My husband gets in on the house-resetting fun, too. He’s in charge of the kitchen fun, but was also sweet enough to help me reinvent that hallway/mudroom of ours.

We knew we needed a good solution in this space for all of our kids’ stuff (this is the biggest dumping ground, y’all...as evidenced from that before photo). This floating shelf my husband installed in the “mudroom” for us has been wonderful...it’s perfect for the lunch boxes and water bottles that always seem to be lying about during the school year. It was a simple DIY shelf that he put up one afternoon for me. I just painted it white to match our paneling on the bottom of the wall (we also painted the top part of the wall in a light putty color to clean it up a bit, too). Find more DIY ideas on the Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® DIY site here.

And here is this same space all filled up with our cleaned-up school stuff. So far, it’s working fabulously. It feels so nice not to have all the swimming gear and gobs of summer stuff all over the floor. It’s great to do a house reset every now and then, isn’t it? Getting ready for the next season or a big change is always refreshing.

Since we moved into this home at the very end of the school year, we weren’t totally sure how we’d use this space. Now, we’re ready to tackle the new school year head on with this little station in place and fully functioning. The shelf will be such a great addition to the hooks. We basically doubled our storage space on the wall. I even made the sign above the shelf to give a little inspiration as my people head out for the day. Click here for the sign tutorial.

The water bottles and lunch boxes always ended up on my kitchen counters every night before we installed this shelf...usually they slept there until the next morning. It’s wonderful that they have their own designated spot now.

Once everything is back in place and we’ve cleaned all of the goodies, I give the whole house a good mop (yep...I do mop, y’all). The Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day® Multi-Surface Concentrate in Honeysuckle scent makes the whole house smell so nice and fresh.

I have been using Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® products for quite some time now. These are some of my faves pictured above. They’re made with essential oils and plant-derived ingredients...so they make my home smell like a fresh flower garden! The Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® products are free of animal-derived ingredients and not tested on animals.

Before school starts, I also give the bathrooms a good scrub, too (the Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® Toilet Bowl Cleaner is my favorite!). It seems like all of the illnesses start spreading the first few weeks of school. Keeping the bathrooms spic and span can help us stay away from all of that germie fun...I also stock the bathrooms with Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® Hand Soaps to make sure we’re washing our hands around the clock, too.

As a graphic person, I love that the Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® products are packaged in beautiful bottles that are recyclable, BPA free, at least 30% post-consumer recycled material and HDPE (high density polyethylene).

The products are also free of artificial colors, ammonia, phthalates, chlorine bleach, parabens, and phosphates.

Check out more fun ways to clean with Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® here. Be sure to stop by the Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® blog here.

I picked up all of my Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® products at Whole Foods Market. Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® is a sponsor of the Whole Kids Foundation and will give $1 to Whole Kids Foundation for each of the first 25,000 cleaning products purchased between 8/24/16- 9/13/16. This special offer is valid on all scents of Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® Multi-Surface Spray, Dish Soap, Multi-Surface Concentrate, Toilet Bowl Cleaner, and Auto Dish Soap. And...here’s a win-win: the Whole Kids Foundation will invest the $25,000 donation from Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day® to help fund edible learning gardens as well as delicious salad bars at schools! The Whole Kids Foundation has dedicated itself to helping kids eat better and even like it! Created by Whole Foods Market, this nonprofit follows the same values and standards for quality ingredients, food production, and nutrition. Click here for more information on the Whole Kids Foundation.

And, for more good, clean fun, be sure to check out Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day® on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.

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