*This post was sponsored by Sauder

I’m sure I’ve talked about this topic on the blog before, but instead of just going “surface level” I thought it might be helpful to get really specific. With four pets living in our home, it’s inevitable that things get messy, dirty, and soiled, so we’ve naturally come up with all sorts of different solutions and routines to make sure our home stays clean.

No one has ever come into our house and let on that it looks and smells like we’ve got four animals running around. In fact, people are usually surprised to find out that we have a dog and three cats because (and I quote) “it doesn’t smell like ammonia.”

I’d like to dispel the myth right here, right now, that cats equal disgusting smells. Our trio of felines are perfect ladies when it comes to their bathroom and laundering habits, which means that their presence in our home is very discrete. Now, the pet hair they leave behind on any and all furniture? That’s another story…But, luckily, I’m talking all about how we manage it below.

How To Clean A Home With Pets

Tip No. 1: Since I’ve already brought it up, let’s start with pet hair. There are a handful of things we do to keep the fur at bay, the first of which is our vacuum. We hit the carpets and some pieces of furniture 1-2 times a week with our trusty Miele vacuum. As long as we stay on top of refreshing both the filter and bag (to maximize suction), we’re able to take care of most of the fur removal with our vacuum alone.

Tip No. 2: Another way to manage pet hair is to use washable throw blankets. You guys rarely see them because I usually pull them off when I’m taking photos, but we drape blankets over a number of key pieces of furniture—the ones our cats favor the most. The mint colored side chair in our living room, for example, is an absolute favorite of our black cat. We used to have to vacuum that chair constantly or flip the cushion whenever company came to hide Luna’s black fur, but now I keep a mint colored throw blanket folded on top of the chair. The matching color of the blanket helps it fade visually into the chair so it’s not so conspicuous, and whenever the blanket starts to look dirty, we just toss it in the wash.

Tip No. 3: We clearly don’t have any qualms about allowing our pets up on the furniture. I know that’s a dicey topic and that not everyone agrees, but we adore our four fur babes and want to be able to cuddle with them wherever we ourselves are lounging or laying. That means any sofa, chair, bed, or rug is fair game for humans and animals alike. That said, we still want to give our four pets places of their very own to escape to, which gives our human-specific furniture a little rest from claws and fur. Rocky the dog has his own pet bed and crate to sneak off to when he wants alone time, and we have a Sauder furniture Pyramid Cat Nester that Tonks the cat has claimed for herself (as you can see in the photos from today’s post).

Tip No. 4: I might as well talk about the elephant in the room, huh? So, litter…This is a tricky thing that every cat owner has to deal with, and I’ve spent decades trying to come up with a clever solution for the issue. How does a person keep the cat litter out of main living spaces, and keep the area around it smelling fresh, too? Here’s how we do it: we keep two litter boxes in my office closet where they’re out of sight but still accessible to the cats. This particular closet is full-sized for clothing since the office is technically an extra bedroom, meaning there’s plenty of space for both boxes. We don’t keep anything else in the closet since there is the issue of litter dust, and keep an air purifier right outside the closet to keep dust from getting to the rest of the room. The closet doors are on sliders, so we just keep one side slightly ajar for our felines to slip through. It works for everybody!

Tip No. 5: Another elephant in the room is unfortunate carpet stains, i.e. puke (sorry for sharing TMI, but I promised to get really specific!). Tonks is an absolute pig in the morning and wolfs down her food, which tends to give her a belly ache. As I’m sure you can imagine (again, sorry) this means we sometimes find stains on the carpet. We’re actually in the process of changing over to natural cleaning products, but for now we use paper towels and Resolve’s foaming carpet cleaner to clean up the mess. This routine has never let us down, and I’m sure our PetProof carpet also goes a long way in making sure stains don’t set in permanently.

There’s probably a whole lot more that I could say on this topic since it’s something we deal with every day, but I feel like this post is already too long. Do you want more info? Let me know and I’ll schedule a “Part 2” breakdown! In the meantime, feel free to share your own advice in the comments. I feel like keeping a clean home with pets is all about clever solutions that maybe aren’t as obvious as the average home cleaning tip. Please tell us your secrets below if you’re willing!