Want to deep clean your house for 2026 and have no idea where to start? HerCanberra’s cleaning queen shares all her secrets
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Our Associate Emma Macdonald has a hidden passion (scrubbing every inch of her home) and lets us in on all her definitely-not-dirty secrets on how to achieve a truly deep clean.
Over my long journalistic career, I have covered every topic imaginable. But it struck me today that there is a story I need to write: on how to deep clean your home. Granted, it is not earth-shattering news, politically informative or even whimsical writing. But I hope someone somewhere benefits from my expertise. Because if there is one thing I know how to do, it is to make a room sparkle. And also, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, someone please print this out and ensure my kids read it and follow it to the letter before people arrive at our house for my wake…
Let’s break things down into Emma’s Principles of Clean Living.
I clean as I go.
This means wiping down kitchen and bathroom benches after I use them, making beds each morning and putting laundry and dishes away as soon as they are cleaned. I cannot live with clutter and everything has its place. If you let stuff build up, you start to lose the war. I’d rather spend 30 minutes each day keeping the chaos in check. Sometimes things do get lost in a busy day or if we travel, but doing one of those “resets” I watch on social media is the way to soothe my soul. If you see a pile in a corner, put it away. If you see a mark on a wall, scrub it off. Admittedly, these principals work best if you are doing regular deep cleans but more about those a bit further down. I even notice how much easier it is to clean and wipe down the kitchen while I wait for things to cook rather than piling pots and pans in the sink. I have it down to such a fine art that I can serve a meal and admire my handiwork of a sparkling kitchen at the same time.
Floors come first.
We have two cats and there is rarely a day I don’t whip out the Dyson (or my son, God bless him will do it if I am rushed) to suck up the wafts of Ragdoll hair that roll across the floors like tumbleweeds. We are a shoe-free house with a mud room off the garage. Handbags, school bags, jackets and shoes all have their place the minute we get home. Everyone takes their shoes off when they come inside and in a hangover from Covid days, I have lovingly trained everyone to wash their hands. If you keep dirt of floors and hand marks off doors and furniture, then you save yourself work. If you keep floors clean, it reduces dust reaching higher places, so I tend to mop several times a week and clean the kitchen floor most evenings where spills are greatest.
Dust is the enemy.
Me and my trusty fluffy duster can be seen flitting around the house at least once a month. Start high and work your way down. I dust everything from lightshades to picture frames to bookshelves and door frames and then I continue right down to the skirting boards. Once I have gathered a fair swag of dust, I take the duster to our front door and bash it against a post to release great clouds of dust onto the street rather than in our home. It is the best therapy. Once a place is dusted, you can go in with a damp cloth and wipe down benches, tables, and seats. If you skip dusting and go straight to wiping down, you are only going to be greeted with streaks of grit. One place perfect for dust collection is your skirting boards. I have an extension duster and can walk around trailing it over the skirting boards. It is obscene the stuff that it picks up. Also, when I am on a cleaning bender, I sometimes even wipe down the skirting boards after dusting them. Not everyone will understand the spiritual satisfaction I receive from such an act, but I am closer to God with shiny skirting boards and that is simply a fact.
Use correct products for the job.
I love beeswax for cleaning and conditioning our leather sofas. I use Glitz furniture polish for our huge wooden dining table simply because it gives a perfect gloss. I use Gumption paste for sinks, loos and shower tiles. In the kitchen, I use a Dyptique multi-surface spray with vinegar to cut through grease. I don’t use chemicals on our floorboards as a general rule because of the cats. If you wipe surfaces regularly you save yourself from needing to scrub them.
Fresh linen is my dopamine.
I’ve already extolled the virtues of Adairs For Kids Pure Laundry Liquid in various HerCanberra forums. Until you have washed your entire collection of bed linen in this stuff you have yet to smell heaven. I wash sheets and towels each week and shake and air doonas outside. People often comment that our house smells like fresh laundry when they come in, and that is just the way I like it. If you do just one thing for yourself each week, give yourself the gift of fresh bedding.
Don’t forget the outside.
My cleaning skills extend beyond the interiors and our neighbours will regularly see me dust cobwebs from around the house, or hosing down the weatherboards and windows. It keeps the paintwork looking fresh and windows sparkling. Hose down the footpaths and driveway while you are there…
Windows in general.
Dear Lord our house has a lot of French windows and it takes many days to clean them all properly (with hot soapy water). I do a deep clean every six months or so, but also like to polish them every so often with a fluffy towel. It keeps them streak-free. Meanwhile, the plantation shutters are the bane of my existence and all I can say is you need to dust them first and then wipe each and every slat down with a slightly damp cloth for the best effect. There is no easy way around it. Have you seen my arm muscles?
Wardrobes, cupboards and storage.
We have a huge house, and yet somehow we have managed to fill it with stuff. I am now pretty ruthless, so when new things come in, older things get moved on, usually donated to locals in my Buy Nothing Facebook group. Old books go to the communal book library at our shops, clothes go to St Vinnies or the good stuff goes to Goodbyes in Braddon for resale. Over Christmas we got rid of a bike, drum kit, piles of books and bag loads of clothes and it truly feels good. Do I need to mention here that fresh laundry gets folded and put away in an orderly fashion? Wardrobes always stay neat and tidy.
The big deep clean.
I usually do one of these over the Christmas break, and usually squeeze one in after we do a holiday mid-year. If you are reading this far, you are clearly invested. Deep cleans take several days and lots of commitment. I go room by room and tidy, dust, wash walls, windows, shutters, move furniture and vacuum obsessively. On my travels around the house I notice any tiny paint chips that need touching up and keep jars of labelled house paint for this purpose. I clean floors by hand, using a grout brush for bathrooms and laundries. I polish mirrors and light switches, vacuum the gaps between the stair bannisters and the kitchen gets polished to within an inch of its life. Everything gets moved, scrubbed and put back, from the furniture to the bottles of perfume on my drawers and skincare jars in the bathroom (not gonna lie I hate this job). The end result is absolutely glorious even if I feel like I have run a marathon and need a remedial massage to recuperate.
I know cleaning is not for everyone. But for me it pairs my house-proud sensibilities with my need to stay in control. My mum was a clean freak and it is just how I am. I often ask the family to pitch in on certain tasks, but if you ask me who I clean for, it is for me. I find cleaning calming, therapeutic and a very necessary way for me to quell any of my general anxieties about the state of the world (let’s just say your probably could have seen our home shining from the International Space Station this year). If you have never approached even a superficial clean much less a deep one, do not feel overwhelmed. I recommend you just pick a small space in your house and start there. Even a cleared and cleaned table can maybe be the jump-start you need to a cleaner and hopefully calmer 2026. And wash your bed sheets while you’re at it.
Main image by Karola G of Pexels
