Complete Living Room Cleaning Checklist

Living areas are well-used spaces in our home, so they call for regular attention to keep them clean and comfortable.  Our Living Room Cleaning Checklist makes this easier by reminding you what needs to be done and about how often.

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House cleaning checklists are a great way to stay on track without having to remember everything.

Free Printable Room-by-Room Cleaning Checklists
(Includes Living Room)

★ Popular Download ★
6 prefilled sheets + 1 blank sheet

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Daily Living Room Cleaning Checklist

A living room usually doesn’t need daily cleaning like a kitchen or bathroom does.  But if yours gets a lot of use, you’ll want to do some daily upkeep.  Mainly this will be to keep clutter in check and stay on top of any new messes that happen.  If you do this regularly, it should only take a couple minutes.
  • Do a quick clutter sweep and tidy up

Weekly Living Room Cleaning Checklist

If you’re successfully keeping up with clutter, weekly cleaning tasks will go much faster.
  • Declutter & tidy visible areas
  • Dust ceiling fans and light fixtures
  • Dust surfaces, furniture, home decor, electronics
  • Empty trash can
  • Clean mirrors
  • Vacuum furniture
  • Spot clean any new spills or stains
  • Vacuum and/or clean floor

Less Often Living Room Cleaning Checklist

Deep cleaning living room tasks don’t need to be done as often.  Remembering them can be challenging, though, since they’re not part of your daily or weekly routine.  Scheduling time for them is important so you don’t find yourself feeling overwhelmed with more cleaning than you’re prepared for.
Monthly
  • Dust ceiling, walls, baseboards, trim, and doors
  • Dust/vacuum window treatments
  • Wash blankets and throws
  • Wash throw pillow covers
Occasionally
  • Deep clean upholstered furniture (12 months)
  • Steam/shampoo rugs and carpet (6-12 months)
  • Clean light fixtures (6 months)
  • Clean curtains/drapes (6 months)

How to Clean Your Living Room Fast and Easy

If you only have minutes to spare and need to clean your messy living room fast, here’s a mini routine that can take as little as 10 minutes.

  1. Gather and throw away any trash.
  2. Remove any dishes, cups, snacks, etc. to the kitchen.
  3. Grab a laundry basket and put everything that belongs somewhere else in it.  Remove.
  4. Tidy up what’s left.
  5. Dust flat surfaces and lamp shades.
  6. Vacuum floor.

When speed is your goal, focus on cleaning the visible areas that will make the most impact.  This probably isn’t the time to be cleaning under the seat cushions or behind the couch.  And you don’t need to move things to dust, just do the areas that you can see for now.

This will make the room look and feel clean without spending too much time on the details.

How to Keep a Living Room Clean

It’s easy to fall into an all-or-nothing cleaning cycle where we don’t clean at all for a while and then have to make up for it with a cleaning flurry.  But that’s a frustrating cycle to be in. 

Here are a few suggestions for keeping your living room clean consistently so you can enjoy it more.

  • Tidy up daily.  This can be as simple as getting any dirty dishes to the kitchen or decluttering 5-10 items per day and putting them back where they belong.
  • Optimize storage space or create more.  Having many items in plain sight, no matter how organized, tends to make a room feel less clean.  If you’ve already decluttered what you feel is unnecessary or doesn’t belong, it’s time to maximize your storage.  And it will make regular cleaning easier, too.
  • Do more “good enough” cleaning.  There are at least two advantages to frequent “good enough” cleaning.  It keeps your home at a consistent level of reasonable cleanliness.  It also reduces the intensity (and possibly frequency) of deep cleaning your house.

Living Room Cleaning Tips

Who doesn’t love a good cleaning tip?  

  • Use a squeegee to gather pet hair in carpet and on fabric upholstery.  It will pick up hair that vacuums leave behind.
  • Use a lint roller to dust lamp shades and window treatments.
  • Clean the room from left to right and top to bottom.  Doing it the same way each time will help you work faster.

Wrap Up

If your living room gets daily use, then spending a few minutes on upkeep each day will go a long way.  Focus on “good enough” cleaning daily, then work the weekly, monthly, and occasional tasks into your cleaning schedule.