The benefits of spring cleaning go beyond decluttering and neatness. Spring cleaning reduces potent allergens and asthma triggers, keeping you and your family healthy. It also increases your productivity and reduces the chances of falling ill. However, cleaning has never been fun, which makes it easy to postpone your home spring cleaning until it is too late. Here are tips to make home spring cleaning fun and bearable;
Come up with a Schedule
Spring cleaning goes beyond your usual vacuuming and scrubbing. With the whole house to clean, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the number of cleaning activities. Therefore, you need a schedule that outlines all tasks that need to be done. Create a schedule that lists every room in your house, including the laundry room, garage, utility room, and closets. Add cleaning windows, under furniture, baseboards, and other areas that you don’t regularly clean among the chores to do. To avoid missing anything out, walk around the house when writing your list.
Start by Decluttering
Cleaning will get much easier if you begin by decluttering your home. Although there are different ways to declutter, it is easier if you set up three boxes. Use one for items you’d like to keep, the other for things you’d like to toss, and the last for belongings you would like to donate. Go through closets and drawers around the house sorting items out. After the decluttering process, you will be left with the items you’d like to keep, which will be easy to organize. Besides making cleaning easy, decluttering also helps increase productivity.
Get Everything You Need
After outlining the cleaning tasks, you need to get ready by getting cleaning supplies; you will need to avoid running out of supplies as you clean. While you may have the basic supplies, ensure you have an all-purpose cleaner for your floor, walls, mirrors, and windows.
Buy specialized cleaners for your oven or wood oil to avoid damaging them with inappropriate cleaning supplies. Additionally, get cleaning tools like brooms and mops, and make replacements if your tools are in bad shape. Using a frayed broom to clean could make the task more tedious.
Clean Out Your Fridge
A significant yet most forgotten task is freshening up the fridge. Your refrigerator does a lot to ensure your food is safe, free from bacteria, and edible. Unfortunately, the refrigerator is often left out during spring cleaning. As you clean the kitchen, empty your fridge, get rid of old condiments, and thoroughly clean your fridge. Remove the fridge bins and clean those using warm water. Let them dry out before returning them. You can also clean the fridge using baking soda to deodorize it and keep it smelling fresh.
Use all The Help You Can Get
Now that you have a cleaning plan and supplies ready, the only thing missing is cleaning backup. Spring cleaning may seem like too much work to handle by yourself. So, if you can, get cleaning help. If you live with people, you can divide tasks amongst yourself and begin cleaning. For example, if you have kids, you can ask them to focus on cleaning their rooms and closets. However, you might need to monitor them to ensure their cleaning is on track. If your children are small, you can ask them to help dust the baseboard or do other minor chores.
Unclog and Clean Your Drain System
Did you include cleaning your drain system as part of your spring cleaning plan? After cleaning out your home, your drains are often forgotten. Clean your stoppers and avoid dumping food, hair, or particles down the drain as they will get trapped by the stopper and cause clogs. You should also deodorize your drain to freshen them up. Pour hot water down the drains and half a cup of vinegar and hot water to clear blockages and keep your drain smelling fresh. When cleaning your drains, avoid chemical cleaners as they could be harmful. Instead, use enzymatic cleaners as they eat away bacteria in the drainage pipes, unclogging them.
Spring Check
One of the great things of performing your annual Spring cleaning, is that as you go throughout your home taking care of the different areas that need to be cleaned and organized, you will find areas of the home that may need some TLC. Similarly to your Home Inspection, as you go throughout your home writing down the items you are cleaning, you can document the areas of the home that need to be improved, common items like replacing your weatherstrips for your windows and doors, ensuring your rain gutters are secured, among many other items.
