Spring Cleaning: Best Tricks for Deep Cleaning Your Home
Spring is in the air and, even though many of us are ready to dig out of the snows of this winter, that still leaves one dreaded task looming on the horizon—Spring Cleaning!
This is the time when you go beyond that little cursory cleaning you do each week and really get down into the nooks and crannies of your home. But it doesn’t have to be that scary.
Here are handy tips and tricks we’ve compiled that can help you do a really deep cleaning on your home this spring:
- Be Meticulous and Merciless — The first thing we suggest is that you be very meticulous and go room-by-room through the house. In each room, create three separate stacks—one to keep, one to donate or sell at a yard sale, and one to toss. Be merciless. If you haven’t seen an item or used it in a year, do you really need to keep it? Toss whatever you don’t need. A decluttered house is much easier to clean.
- Bathrooms — This is a good place to start with the actual deep cleaning. Spray the surfaces of your tub, toilet, shower, and sink with multi-purpose cleaners that may need to sit awhile to break up the accumulated soap scum. (You can also use diluted white vinegar for an all-natural clean.) Make sure that you scrub these surfaces thoroughly. If you have a glass shower door, you can use a damp dryer sheet to clean it off. If you have a shower curtain, toss it and start fresh with a new curtain and a new look for your room.
- Kitchen — Now let’s get this one under control. With a spring cleaning, you want to get all of the yearly things taken care of. One of these is cleaning the oven. If you don’t have a self-cleaning oven, put together a mixture of baking soda and vinegar with a couple of drops of dish soap. Let this sit on the tough spots and then scrub it clean. If you have a gas stovetop, you can also coat the stovetop itself with car wax. This way, your regular clean-ups of spills will be much easier. The microwave should also be cleaned, but this one is really easy. Get a cup of water and add a tablespoon of white vinegar. Place this in the microwave and turn it on for five minutes. The steam from this will clean out your microwave so you can just wipe it out.
- Dusting — Dusting may not be a room unto itself, but it is certainly one of the chores that feels like it. It usually winds up on the top three list of most hated household chores. To help this spring, use these ideas. First, on surfaces that aren’t easily seen, such as the tops of cabinets or tall bookshelves, place a square piece of newspaper down after you dust. This will cover the surface and catch any other accumulations so you just have to change out the sheet of paper every few months and save yourself the dusting for those spots. We also recommend investing in a telescoping arm duster so you don’t have to strain your back.
Finally, when it comes to dusting the ceiling fans, we suggest using a pillowcase. Take the case and put it around the blades of the fan and then simply wipe across. The dust will be trapped inside of the case and you don’t have to worry about raining dust down on your room. And, you can just toss the pillowcase in the washer to clean it off.
Spring cleaning doesn’t have to be the pain that everyone thinks it is. If you follow a few basic tips, you can save yourself some sweat and tears and make this year’s cleaning go smoother.
**********