Giving Your Home a Good Spring Clean

It’s that time of year again: the weather is getting warmer and you and your family are coming out of your long winter hibernation, only to notice that your home is in disarray and in need of a good old-fashioned spring clean. There is no reason to fear the spring clean, as it is a necessary process that will start your home off on the right foot for the year to come. The following are a few tips to make this year’s spring clean as efficient as possible, so that you can enjoy your clean home for longer.

Find the Right Time
Timing is important when it comes to spring cleaning. The whole process is going to take you at least a weekend, so you will want to choose one that isn’t loaded down with other obligations. Besides, the key to efficiency is momentum, and it will be harder to get all your tasks done if you have to keep stopping halfway through. Try to match the cleaning date with the schedules of roommates or family members – either to make sure they will be out of the house and out of your way, or that they will be around to help.

Ready Your Supplies
To stay efficient, have all the necessary cleaning supplies at the ready before you start. By stocking up on sponges, cloths, paper towels, rags, rubber gloves and scrubbers, you can eliminate any need to stop and run to the store. A bin or bucket is a great way to carry the cleaning supplies with you from room to room, and be sure to have a few bags available for dirty rags and garbage.

Keep, Recycle or Toss
The key ingredient to a successful spring clean is getting rid of things you don’t need or want anymore. To make it easy to discard things, find a few empty boxes and label them “to throw away”, “to give away” and “to sell”. Downsizing your stuff is essential to giving your home the fresh start that it needs, as well as for getting things out of your life that are taking up physical and mental space. During the process, anything that you want to keep should be tidied up and put away in order to make the next step more efficient.

Go Deep
The whole point of spring cleaning is to clean all the nitty gritty things that you normally wouldn’t think about during day-to-day maintenance cleaning. By keeping in mind that you only have to spring clean once a year, you can really dig deep and get to the dusty, sticky, gritty and mouldy things that hide in the dark crevasses of your home. Cleaning windows and the scary parts around the window frames that collect all the dead spiders and flies is a good example, also the condenser coils of the fridge, the area behind the toilet, and underneath the stove.

Final Touches
After all the cleaning has been finished, you can add some light touches that will really make your home sparkle. Natural whiteners such as lemons and baking soda are great cleaners to use on countertops and other surfaces to make them shine. Add a bouquet of freshly-cut flowers to every room to finish off the clean and to add natural fragrance to your home.