From Cluttered to Calm: Your Ultimate Chicago Bedroom Cleaning Guide

Between work, family, and enjoying everything our city has to offer, finding time for a deep cleaning help session can feel impossible. If your bedroom has become a catch-all for clutter and dust, you’re not alone. This guide breaks down the process into manageable steps, so you can reclaim your sanctuary. And when life gets too busy, remember that a trusted Chicago cleaning company is just a click away.

The Three-Wave Cleaning Method for Your Bedroom

Instead of cleaning randomly, try this structured approach. Think of it as three passes around the room: Tidy & Organize, Deep Clean, and Finish Floors & Garbage. Today, we’re focusing on Wave Two—the deep clean that transforms your space.

Start at the Top: Your Bed & Headboard

Your bed is the centerpiece of the room. Dust loves to settle on headboards and artwork above the bed. Use a microfiber cloth with a bit of water for wood or glass; for fabric, use a vacuum’s upholstery attachment. This isn’t just about looks—a dust-free sleeping area is better for your breathing.

Your bedding needs love, too. Launder sheets weekly (every two weeks at the absolute most) to wash away sweat, oils, and skin cells. Pillowcases, if neglected, can even contribute to acne. Comforters and pillows should be cleaned every 3-6 months.

Don’t Forget the Mattress & The Void Below

If you have a mattress protector (an absolute must!), remove it and give your mattress a thorough vacuum with a clean upholstery attachment. Next, confront the space under the bed. Whether it’s empty or a storage zone, it’s a dust bunny metropolis. Pull everything out, sort, and vacuum the area thoroughly. This is a prime spot to need fast cleaning services if it’s been ignored for too long.

Conquer Clutter Black Holes

Bedrooms have sneaky spots where mess accumulates. Here’s how to tackle them.

Nightstands & Horizontal Surfaces

Nightstands are clutter magnets. Empty the drawers, sort the contents, wipe the interior, and only return what you truly need at bedtime. The top surface sets the room’s tone. For a clean look:

• Remove everything from the surface.
• Wipe it down with an all-purpose cleaner in an “S” pattern.
• Clean each item and place it back mindfully, aligning it with the edges of the surface.

This principle applies to dressers and shelves, too. A clear surface makes the whole room feel serene and is a hallmark of professional home cleaning.

The Great Closet Clean-Out

No matter its size, a closet needs a system. Consider a seasonal swap: rotate spring/summer and fall/winter clothing. This forces you to sort, donate unworn items, and rediscover forgotten pieces. For a proper clean:

• Empty everything onto your bed.
• Vacuum and dust the interior, including high shelves and the floor.
• Return items in an organized way that suits your lifestyle.

If this feels overwhelming, it might be time to schedule a cleaning with a pro who can help you reset the space.

Taming the Drawer & Clothing Pile Chaos

We’ve all been there: the drawer of doom and the “floor-drobe.” The key is daily habit. Try to fold or hang clothes immediately. For drawers, tackle one at a time: empty, declutter, vacuum the drawer, and neatly refold contents. Dealing with the perpetual laundry pile? Doing smaller, more frequent loads (like 3 per week) prevents a mountain from forming. Sometimes, the easiest way to clean your apartment is to get a handle on these daily habits.

The Dusting Details You Might Miss

Dust management is critical in bedrooms. Work from top to bottom:

• High Dusting: Use a microfiber cloth secured to a mop handle to hit ceiling corners, moldings, and door frames.
• Art & Mirrors: Dust frames first, then clean glass with a vinegar-water solution.
• Points of Contact: Disinfect light switches, doorknobs, and remote controls regularly.
• Window Sills & Coverings: Wipe sills as needed. Vacuum blinds or dust shades with a microfiber cloth.

This comprehensive approach ensures you won’t need to search for a cleaning service near me every other week just to keep dust at bay.

The Final Wave: Floors & Finishing Touches

Wave Three is all about the finish. Remove any trash from the room, then tackle the floors. Vacuum rugs and carpets thoroughly—bedrooms are dust-mite hotspots. For hard floors, use a vacuum that handles both surfaces or a dry dust mop. This final sweep is what makes the room feel truly get your space cleaned and complete.

Remember, this method is a toolbox. Adapt it to your schedule and needs. The goal is a peaceful, clean bedroom that helps you unwind. And if you’d rather spend your weekend enjoying Chicago instead of cleaning it, professional cleaning services in Chicago are the perfect solution.

Bedrooms have a lot of little hiding places, places that you might miss cleaning when you’re doing just a quick basic clean. So, in this video, we’re going to talk about how to do a proper top tobottom bedroom clean so that your bedroom looks less like this and more like a hotel room. And if you’re new here, welcome to Clean My Space. My name is Melissa Maker. I’m an accidental cleaning expert and it is my job to help you find the most efficient and effective ways to get your cleaning and organizing done right the first time. And give this video a thumbs up for a perfectly made tight bed that you just get to slip into. And to make bedroom cleaning just a little bit easier, I’ve put together a bedroom cleaning checklist that you can download from our website. I’ve got a link for that in the description down below. Whenever I approach a room and I talk about the method for cleaning it, I always talk about my three-wave system. The first wave is tidy and organize. The second wave is to actually clean, and the third wave is to take care of the floors and garbage. You can watch videos about our three-wave system. I’ll link it for you down below. But the idea is that you have three definitive things that you’re doing in one pass around the room. So, you do three total passes. So today in this video, we’re focusing specifically on wave two and all of the things that you can do to deep clean your room. Again, areas that you probably think about when you’re cleaning and definitely some areas that you don’t. Since I’m sitting on it, we will start by talking about the bed. If you have a headboard or art above your bed, you always want to make sure that you’re dusting that headboard or the art. You need a microfiber cloth, a little bit of water, and you just need time to give it a good dust. Now, if it’s a fabric headboard, you can use a vacuum with an upholstery attachment, and you can do the exact same thing. You want to keep your headboard healthy or dustfree because it makes it easier for you when you’re sleeping to breathe comfortably. Now, on that topic, we can also talk about bedding. So, your pillows and your comforter. That goes for the stuff you sleep on and in, as well as the fancy stuff that goes on top that you chuck on the floor. Should be cleaned every six to three months depending on where you live and how sweaty you get. Got videos on how to do that. And your decorative stuff you can spot clean, but again, you really want to manage for dust. Sheets should be laundered once every week. And if you really need to push it, every two weeks. But your sheets absorb your sweat, your dead skin cells, your body oils. So, it’s important to keep them clean. Just think about them like another garment. Kind of gets yucky. Sleeping in them and your room can start to smell. Also, your pillowcase can absorb oils and dirt and can eventually cause acne, especially if you’re an acne prone person. So, you really want to make sure you’re staying on top of those sheets. Now, your mattress is another area that you want to think about cleaning. I sure hope that if you’re watching the Clean MySpace video, you have a mattress protector. If not, I’ll link some of my favorites for you down below. They are crucial to have because they actually protect your mattress from the same stuff we were just talking about with sheets and also spills or, you know, if you have a sick kid sitting on your bed and they puke on your bed, you don’t have to worry about that seeping into your mattress. Just do yourself a favor and get a mattress protector. So, remove your mattress protector. We uh we’ve talked about this before in detail, but you essentially vacuum using a clean um upholstery attachment or a brush attachment. Uh it just needs to have power on it. And you want to vacuum uh your mattress really, really well. We’ll move straight from the mattress to the area under your bed. Now, some people use this for storage, other people just keep it empty like me. And either way, it’s going to get dusty under there. So, if you do keep things under, you’ll have to pull them out. I would also recommend sorting through that stuff because it’s very easy to put things under the bed, forget about them until whenever, and then have a huge decluttering job on your hands. But when you pull that stuff out or if you don’t have stuff under there, regardless, you want to make sure that you’re giving the underbed area a good vacuum every now and then. That is where all of those dead skin cells end up falling because remember, dust falls from the top to the bottom. And you will often find some of the most massive dust bunnies under your bed. Now, under your bed happens to be what we call in the Clean MySpace world a black hole for clutter. Another clutter black hole that you have in your room cuz you have two are your night side tables or your night side table depending on how many you’ve got in your bedroom. They generally come with drawers and shelves and they look so cute to place all your cute stuff. But the problem is sometimes we put too much cute stuff and then we forget the other cute stuff that we have that’s sitting at the back of the drawer. So one of the things to keep in mind when you’re tackling your night side tables for cleaning is to pull everything out, sort through it, give it a little wipe down on the inside, it does get dusty. You can also use a vacuum with a little attachment if you like and then neatly place everything back in there. Really and truly, the function of nightside tables or bedside tables is to have things that you need immediately when you are in bed. So don’t stack it up with superfluous stuff that you just don’t need there. Your night side table also has a horizontal surface like the majority of your furniture that is very easy to get cluttered up if you don’t keep it at bay. I often talk about on this channel the importance of keeping your horizontal surfaces neat and tidy because when you walk into a room, if you see a cluttered space, even if your room was just professionally cleaned, if there are like 12 things on there and they’re disorganized, it’s not going to look or feel clean or tidy to you. Which is why keeping your horizontal surfaces clean and organized and minimal is so important. Now, it doesn’t have to be minimal like two things. It has to be minimal, like what feels good and right and kind of peaceful and easy for you to look at. So, if that’s six things, great. If it’s two, fine. Whatever works for you and feels right, that is what you want to think about when you’re tidying and organizing your horizontal surfaces. Now, a trick that I’ve always used whenever I’m training people how to clean professionally, it’s not really a trick, it’s more a method, but the idea is to remove everything from the horizontal surface, clean it with the appropriate cleaning product and tool. So, in my case, I would just use a microfiber cloth and some all-purpose cleaner. I would treat the horizontal surface. I would wipe it down with a cloth using an S pattern. And then I would gently pick up each item, give it a wipe down, and place it down mindfully on the surface, lining the item up either parallel to the edge of the surface or perpendicular to the edge of the surface. That way, you always have straight, neat lines, and it always makes a room look neater and more tidied. Now, this applies for all horizontal surfaces in your room. So, not only your night side tables, but also your dressers or any other furniture that you have. Places where it’s easy for you to throw six picture frames and a belt and coins and lighters and you you know how it gets. No matter how big or small the closet is in your bedroom, it’s a place that definitely needs to be organized because closets, man, it is so easy for them to just get completely out of control. Several years ago, I decided that I was going to change my closet over twice a year. I do a fall winter change out and a spring summer change out. It gives me an opportunity to sort through all of my clothes at that time, get rid of anything that I no longer wear. And it also kind of lets me know what I need to buy so that I’m not just mindlessly buying stuff all season, which is what I used to do all the time. I also feel like when you kind of have that intimate experience with your closet and you’re like picking through each item, it really does make you think about what you have and reminds you about some of the great stuff that you have in your closet that you sometimes might skip over or forget about because you’re just so overwhelmed by four seasons worth of clothing. What you would want to do when you’re cleaning your closet, at least the proper way to do it would be to take everything out of your closet, put it on your bed, vacuum the inside, dust the inside because for sure, for sure it’s going to be dusty in there. You also want to be mindful of the shelves above and the space below um where all of your clothes hang cuz those are two sort of bonus clutter black holes that you have in the bedroom. So, there are plenty of different ways that you can make your closet look great. I think the most important thing to do is to slim it down, clean it out, and put a system back in place that makes sense for you and your lifestyle. One of the areas I find the most challenging to keep clean in my room would be my drawers. I will admit it, my drawers look like crap right now, and that’s just because I don’t care enough about them. You guys know me, I don’t love cleaning, and keeping my drawers clean and organized is definitely not a priority for me. I think the hardest part about drawers is trying to keep them clean when you’re in a rush. So, if you’re putting laundry back quickly or you’re trying to find that shirt and you’re like rifling through your t-shirt drawer, that’s when things can get a little bit messy. So, like everything else in your room, and I’m also partially saying this for myself, it’s really important to kind of manage it dayto-day and sort of tuck things back and make them look neat as you go instead of kind of letting them get out of control. But either way, no matter what your drawers look like, unless they look pristine, what you would want to do is take everything out of your drawers. And you don’t have to do all your drawers at once. You can do one a day or one a week until it’s all done. Uh but what you would want to do is take everything out of your drawers, sort through it, get rid of anything that doesn’t fit or has a hole in it or that you’re just not using anymore, fold the rest of the stuff back and replace it neatly. And if you want bonus points, you can vacuum your drawer before you put everything back. Another area that the majority of us, myself included, will have to clean when they are cleaning their room is the raging pile of clothing. Whether it’s the floor drove, which is my jam, or the chair drove, wherever you end up taking your clothes off and chucking them at the end of the day when you’re too tired to deal with them, you’ve got to clean that area. Now, this area is actually fairly simple to manage. I’m again advising myself here because if you stay on top of it and build that in as part of a habit, you won’t have that pile build up and build up and build up. I’m pretty good at taking my soiled stuff and throwing it in the laundry. I have a separated hamper, lights, colors, and darks, and I will easily just chuck things in there. And I’m really good with staying on top of my laundry. I will tell you guys, when I think about keeping my room clean, that also means doing three loads of laundry a week, lights, colors, and darks, so that my clothes aren’t piling up. And, you know, I have this huge laundry job on my hands. But back to the floor or the chair or wherever it is that you throw your stuff. You will have to deal with that when you’re cleaning your room. you’ll have to deal with it a lot less if you’re better about your habits. And what that kind of looks like is at the end of the day, folding your clothes that are good enough to wear again or hanging them back up and throwing any of your soiled stuff directly into the laundry. I I will tell you again, like I do this about 30% of the time and 70% of the time temptation gets me to just chuck it on the floor. But ideal. One of the biggest cleaning tasks to do in a bedroom is to manage the dust. That can look like a lot of different things depending on what you have in your bedroom. So, as we do with cleaning, I will start at the top and work my way to the bottom when it comes to talking about different things to dust. So, when we talk about dusting light fixtures, any moldings or corners in a bedroom, even over the door, uh, like over the door frame, what you would want to do is take a microfiber cloth and aix it over the back end of a mop pole. Or if you’re someone that has a maker mop, you can use that as well. and you can just run it along the top edge of your bedroom, door frames, anything like that, and do your high dusting. When it comes to things that you have on the wall, such as mirrors or artwork, what you would want to do is dust the frame first. So, you can just use an all-purpose microfiber cloth. Even dry is fine. And you can just quickly give a wipe to get rid of any of that dust. I always let dust fall to the bottom because I know I’m going to be vacuuming up afterwards. So, don’t get too finicky about where it flies. Next, I would take a flatweave microfiber cloth, treat it with a little bit of glass cleaner. In my case, I just use equal parts vinegar and water. I would spray my cloth or the glass, whatever I felt like that day and whatever makes sense for the piece. And then I would do a quick wipe down using the S pattern. And when that’s done, I would move on to the next piece. Now, this isn’t quite dusting, but I do want to mention it. Points of contact in a bedroom are very important to clean. from light switch plates to draw pulls, doorork knob handles, remotes, anything like that that you’re constantly touching. I think at this point we all know what a point of contact is. You’d want to make sure that you’re giving that a clean with some disinfectant. Other things in your room that I want you to think about dusting every now and then would be your window sills. These are sort of things that you can clean on an as needed basis, but just eyeball them and if you notice they’re a little bit dusty, you can use a microfiber cloth and water and give them a wet wipe. for window coverings and lampshades. That’s another thing that can get dusty. Depending on the type of window covering that you have, it might make sense for you to vacuum it. Uh using a brush attachment, it also might make sense for you to use a microfiber cloth. Window cleaning I would say to only do a couple times a year whenever it really bothers you. And I would also caution you that you can clean your indoor windows as much as you want, but your outdoor windows eventually are going to have to be cleaned as well. Now that we’re done wave two, we can move right on to wave three, which is removing any garbage from your room and cleaning the floors. So, for me, that looks like bringing in my stick back and I will clean the rug really well. If you have a carpet or rug in your room, you want to make sure that you vacuum it really, really well. Your room is super dusty just because you’re sleeping in here and there’s a bed, lots of dust mites, so you have to stay on top of that. Uh, my vacuum is fine on hardwood floors as well as on rugs or carpets, but if you’re someone who has a vacuum that doesn’t love cleaning hardwood floors, you can always use a dry dust mop. Of course, the Makaker’s mop is a great option for that. Uh, or anything else that you have on hand. You just want to make sure that you finish off by giving your floors a really good clean. So, now you have this robust method to clean your bedroom. And obviously, I don’t expect you to do everything perfectly or exactly by the books. the first or even the fifth time. This is yours to play around with and tweak. But now at least you have the toolbox, the skill set, and you know what needs to be done so you can adjust it to suit your needs. And that brings me to this week’s comment question, which is, what is the one area in your room that needs the most attention? For goodness sakes, mine is always and forever will be my closet. In this new home, I actually don’t have a dresser, so all of my clothes live in the closet. and keeping that thing organized. It’s a job. So, let me know what your area is in the comments down below. If you like what we do here at Clean MySpace, you will probably love our email newsletter. It’s called the Dirty Dish, which is hilarious for a name of a newsletter that comes from a cleaning YouTube channel, but it’s got all sorts of cleaning tips and product recommendations and so much more. You can subscribe by clicking the link down below. And if you want to support what we do here at the Clean MySpace channel, you can consider becoming a member. And now that you know how to take great care of your bedroom, you might also want to know how to take great care of your kitchen. And I got you covered on that. You can check out this video right over here. Thanks so much for watching and we’ll see you next