Mount Vernon

I would estimate that I have cleaned somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of the house in the past two weeks.  I had thought that the methods and schedules I was implementing were designed especially by me, for me, but I discovered today that I'm not nearly as creative as I thought I was.

Basically, I started cleaning at the back of the house; specifically, next to our back door.  I have worked in a circle since then, tackling one "section" of the house each day. The sections have always been adjacent, with the exception of the detour to my closet, and they have me working consistently farther from the back door and closer to the front door.  Today, though, I found out that this particular style of cleaning has a name:  the Mount Vernon method.

In Lynn Bowen Walker's book, which I wrote about in my last post, she says that the Mount Vernon style of cleaning was so named because it is the way that George Washington's staff kept that enormous house clean.  To "Mount Vernon-ize" a house, you start cleaning on one side of the front door and you work around the perimeter of the house, cleaning and de-cluttering as you go, until you have been through every room and you arrive back at the front door.  (Then, you do it all over again...but more on that later.)

I'm going to assume that I'm doing a "reverse Mount Vernon".  I started by the back door, not the front, because the back of the house -- the kitchen, breakfast area, and living room -- seemed the dirtiest and were the most often used.  Otherwise, the practice is working well, and I can understand why it worked for a large house a long time ago (although I am a bit miffed that I'm not quite as creative in my methods as I thought I was).

The thing that most caught my attention, though, was the fact that the Mount Vernon method is repetitive. In other words, the trip throughout the house along the perimeter isn't going to be accomplished in one day, and, even if it was, it's never ending.  I think I got so caught up in the excitement of a sparkling-clean house that I viewed it as a project with a beginning and ending date.  As I work, I recognize that I should consider this more of a permanent change and ongoing effort.