As the leaves begin to color the trees green and the plants begin to emerge from the ground, it means only one thing; spring is upon us. You can feel renewed energy in the air that comes with the warm weather and sunny skies. While spring bestows many great features such as the NHL and NBA sport’s playoffs, it also forces us to do the dreaded spring cleaning. A deep cleaning is when you look at all of those “why not” purchasings and just ask yourself “why”. Spring cleaning starts with a good idea and swiftly turns into a pain in the back. It doesn’t have to be that way.
The first step to putting your household in order is to come up with a game plan. Too often people have the urge to wipe down the house and throw everything away, but they don’t do it in a purposeful way. We recommend that you list out all of the household spring tidying chores that need to get done and prioritize them. This is a helpful step regardless of if you are a veteran of the cleaning season or a new homeowner. If you are still stuck on what to do for a deep cleaning then check out this handy spring cleaning checklist. It is important to remember that a single person shouldn’t be tasked with completing all of the chores. Make it a game of roulette wen you divvy up the to-do’s among all of the members of the household. Another division of duties is to assign everyone a room to prim at their own schedule, or allot certain hours on the weekends to collective work on cleaning the house.
Often times people get caught up on the notion that spring cleaning is about decluttering and hauling junk away from your garage. While this is not wrong, it is only part of the orderly process. The other portion of the cleaning is in the name itself, “cleaning”, as in actually wiping down those kitchen counters and mopping the floors. We encourage you to take your time when cleaning and to not do a half-hearted job. Try listening to the radio or a podcast to pass the time. When tidying up your kitchen make sure to sweep the floors and mop them to ensure that they look their best. Perhaps put down a fresh coat of protective varnish on hard surfaces once a year. Not only should you wipe the counters but also run a cloth over the cabinet surfaces while you check on the plates, silverware, and glasses. Plastic containers might need to be sorted and weeded out from overcrowded shelves. Get a sponge and put some elbow grease into cleaning up the stove top as you remove all of the gradoo that has accumulated from those delicious meals you made this year.
Similar to kitchens, make sure to evaluate each room based on the amount of junk in the room and the amount of dirt/dust that is spread throughout it. We recommend that you take everything out of the room and tackle the floors first, whether that means vacuuming the carpet or sweeping the hardwood. It is often times easier to push the furniture out of the way prior to the floor cleaning. This gives you a chance to decide whether or not you want everything in the room, ie toss out the junk, or if you want to have a different furniture arrangement for the room. With an empty or semi-empty room we recommend that you really do a good job wiping down all of those tough to reach sports or overlooked spot i.e., window trimming, legs of furniture, bookcase shelves and even fireplace mantles.
And the last room on your list is the garage or shed in which years worth of forgotten items might be stored. The same idea of starting with a clean slate works here. Remove your car and as many boxes, old sport’s equipment, paint cans, and tools as possible from the space. Sweep the cobwebs off the wall and then the floors. If you can, hose it down to get rid of any remaining cobwebs, spring pollen, and general dirt that might be laying around. Now is the time to discard home building materials that are no longer needed. Before you pile the items back in the storage area, consider those shelving and organizational tools that you have seen at the DIY stores. Draw up a plan, then layer the items back into their defined and spruced-up place.