The Art of Spring Cleaning

  

It’s that time of year isn’t it? Blossoms, birds, bees…and the lovely smell of fresh clean air when the windows are open wide…

I just know the first thing that enters your mind is…. spring cleaning! Right?  Well..maybe not the first thing. But I must say that when the sun moves over to that ‘spring’ position in the sky…it throws into stark relief a myriad of little dust bunnies that have been hiding in my house all winter.

I’ve been having that “Oh the weather’s lovely—let’s clean!” feeling for two weeks now. After keeping the house closed up all winter, it’s great to throw open the doors and windows and pull out the mop buckets! “Let the sunshine in..is my motto!” Of course, if you clean your windows it can shine in a lot better. LoL!

Spring cleaning used to be a job that took a week of non-stop work from sun up to sun down, but most of us just don’t have time for that. I sure don’t.   

It’s fine to top clean most of the time, but deep cleaning has to be done eventually. I have heard lots of approaches the best being clean one room a day from top to bottom..or even one room a week for two months.  But my favorite way to ‘spring clean’ is to do one big cleaning task per day or week.  

Spring cleaning is different from regular cleaning because you clean every nook and cranny, knowing you won’t clean it this hard again until late summer. It means focusing on details and being just a little bit picky.  I’m not referring here to kitchen appliances or even bathrooms here because most of us tackle these rooms thoroughly on a weekly  or monthly basis.

Here are the tasks that I’m tackling over the next week or two:

Dusting…high and low since dust falls down. Start with ceilings (looking for cobwebs), then hit the ceiling fans and a/c vents. Then get your dusting cloth out and a good step ladder and dust the picture frames, and anything else up high in the room.

Check the tops of kitchen cabinets, bookshelves, and refrigerator. They may be pretty bad if you are as short as I am and ‘out of sight is out of mind’.

Then vacuum the lamp shades and furniture because  a lot of dust collects in them. I get   my little vacuum cleaner out and vacuum my laminate wood floors. Dust bunnies travel a lot when there is no carpet to catch them.

Sigh..so for me, dusting requires a lot of sweeping under furniture and hard to get places. 

Dust and wipe with a damp cloth all of your collectibles too.

Anything on a shelf..books, antiques etc. is going to get pretty dusty over time.

Cleaning and polishing wood. I use Don Aslett’s wood to wood to polish my furniture, but first I use some Murphy’s oil soap to give all of my wooden things a good cleaning. 

Tables and chairs especially need this thorough cleaning.

  Bookshelves, pianos, desks, coffee tables..anything with a horizontal surface that is made of wood are the main things needing to be polished.

 

Now think GLASS. My favorite way to clean glass is to use plain old Windex (or in a pinch alcohol and water) and paper towels. I go out ‘hunting’ for glass all around the house…with my trigger ready!  I usually hit everything plastic or electronic at the same time. From one end of the house to the other, clean glass.

For the outside of windows, simple dishsoap and a bucket of water and good squeegee works great.    You can also clean ceramics and other glass objects d’art while on this ‘mission’. :o)

By the way, I would never use 409 on a piece of hand-blown glass from Italy...just mild soap and water.

 

Don’t forget lamp bowls and light diffusing bowls!

Next comes fingerprints on doors, walls, and other surfaces. For wall paper, the best cleaning tool is a dry sponge or magic eraser. I was amazed how subtly dirty a papered wall can get without you realizing it. Doors and door knobs, cabinet doors, and walls near tables or beds need special attention. I use 409 or some other all purpose cleaner for doing this job.

Mini-blinds will need to be washed too.  Sometimes it’s best just to take them down and wash them in a tub of warm soapy water.  But at least give them special attention rather than a quick dusting.

After that, wash fabric things if needed…curtains, floor rugs, shower curtain, throws, even some pillows. If necessary, you may want to see about carpet or furniture cleaning. I have to say that’s one thing I don’t miss…cleaning carpet!

I really dislike constant sweeping..but hardwood floors are easy to clean compared to carpet. Blankets and comforters may need to be taken into town and dry cleaned or washed in a supersized washer.

      

The last major task is floors…vacuuming, scrubbing, mopping, spot cleaning, carpet cleaning and perhaps waxing. I would start with floors because they give the biggest sense of ‘reward’ over anything else just because they take up so much visual space. But it seems a pity to go mopping only to cover the floors with dust during the other steps.  

This is the perfect time to pull out the stove and refrigerator and clean underneath. They really do need it!

Like windows, clean floors have the biggest VISUAL impact because they are so BIG. I’ve been remiss about floors because laminate wood floors just don’t show messy like some other floors do. But I’m getting a lot better about it. 

I must say I was amazed that it took most of a day just to clean ‘half’ the floors in our house!  There is just so much dust! Of course, my hubby and sons track in a LOT of ‘the great outdoors’ and then the pets like to shed a little..and the bird spills seeds and occasionally molts..so I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised.

There’s lots more that COULD be done..but these tasks are the most important. Just take it easy and focus on one task at a time. If you focus on even one of these jobs per week, in a month or so you could have your house completely spring cleaned. And you can probably skip the gym this month if you decide to work at your spring cleaning. :o) Spring cleaning can be a real workout!

How about you? Are you getting that ‘fresh air’ feeling? Ready to roll your sleeves up and get some serious cleaning done ?

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