Warmer months are fast approaching and an excellent way to put the spring back into your step is by getting a head start on your spring cleaning. A thorough clean of your home is the perfect way to refresh for the year ahead. It doesn’t matter how much time you have available, whether you clean in one go or spread it out over the coming weeks, putting in the effort will renew your home from the inside out.
Using our guide though will get you there that little bit faster with top tricks on tidying, dusting, and scrubbing your way to a cleaner home.
Spring cleaning is about putting in more effort than your usual cleaning routine. It’s an opportunity to target those 7 dirtiest places in the home you’re forgetting to clean, which will hopefully leave you feeling peaceful in both home and mind. Additionally, we’ve got useful guides on cleaning hacks and tips for cutting your cleaning time in half to use alongside our list below. Put it this way, you’ll have your house looking spotless in no time.
1. Decluttering is key
Before you even begin to clean, you’ll want to focus on decluttering your home. A spring clean is the perfect opportunity to practice the 5 best decluttering methods from the tried-and-tested KonMari to Swedish death cleaning. It’s all about sifting through your belongings room by room, item by item.
Take your spring clean as a moment to gather your thoughts and assess what you really need in your home and what you want to carry forward with you. Donate, recycle, and throw away any unnecessary or unused items. Organize what’s left so you can continue your year knowing exactly what you’ve got, so you can avoid buying duplicates or misplacing items. Essentially, take all the necessary steps at this starting point of the spring cleaning ritual so that you don’t have to do it further down the line.
2. Harness the power of baking soda
We’ll continue our spring clean tricks with the excellent multi-purpose cleaning product, baking soda. Its abrasive texture makes it great for scrubbing and scouring away dirt and grease. It’s versatile, meaning for your spring cleaning, it can take on a lot of jobs throughout your home, which we’ll get onto shortly. Plus, it’s non-toxic unlike some of your usual day-to-day cleaning-specific products.
You can use baking soda to clean your oven, clean the grout on floor tiles, and even unclog your drains (when used alongside vinegar) to keep them smelling fresh. Depending on what you’re cleaning, you’ll want to sprinkle it, mix it with water to create a suitable paste, let it sit on your surface before wiping away, or mix it with other ingredients such as vinegar or lemon juice.
Once you’re done cleaning, you can even use any of the leftover baking soda in your pancakes or cakes. It’s important to note though, that you should avoid using baking soda on these 7 things.
3. Use a damp microfiber cloth for walls
When it comes to cleaning your painted walls, there’s a surprising simplicity that you may not be aware of. Depending on the stain you’re hoping to remove, you’ll need to mix up a solution to suit, such as pencil marks or coffee spillages. At the very basic level though, you’ll just need dish soap, warm water, and a microfiber cloth to remove a lot of the dust, grease, and grime stains from the walls throughout your home.
Start with your damp microfiber cloth, or even mop, and begin at the top working your way down each wall. You want to ensure the cloth isn’t too wet to avoid damage, a point that is especially important if you’re considering using this method on any vinyl wallpaper walls.
For any paper wallpapers, don’t use any water at all. Moisture is less of an issue if using this trick with cleaning your bathroom tiles, but you may want to use a disinfectant cleaner instead of a dish soap for these walls to give them that extra clean.
4. Deep clean your bedding
Swapping out your sheets and giving everything a good wash is part of your average cleaning routine. When it comes to spring cleaning, there’s a deeper clean to be carried out that should be repeated a few times a year and that’s cleaning your actual bedding; from your pillows to your comforter.
It can be a little overwhelming dealing with such large items to clean, especially if you’ve not done it properly before and there’s definitely 7 mistakes to avoid when washing bedding. Luckily, we’ve got guides on how to wash a pillow, how to wash a comforter, and how to clean your mattress.
Depending on the bedding care instructions, you’ll be able to complete this spring clean with proper use of your washer and/or dryer. It may also be something you delegate as one of your last jobs when the warmer months have truly settled in. That way you can air out any bedding outside or open your windows and let the fresh air circulate to help out with any residual moisture.
5. Buy a pack of lemons
If you thought baking soda was impressive, then the power of a simple lemon is about to change your cleaning game ten-fold. When life gives you lemons, spring clean with them. While lemons are acidic, they’re nowhere near as harsh as some of the chemicals found in cleaning products.
There are lots of different ways to use lemons to clean from tackling limescale, microwaving a bowl of water with lemons to remove grease, refreshing your cutting boards, to wiping down various kitchen items and glass around your home. They’re also great for freshening up parts of your home.
You can cut a lemon in half and place it in your fridge for 30 minutes, pop lemon wedges in the top rack of your dishwasher, or boil and simmer lemon in water on your hob for a natural air freshener.
6. Utilize your vacuum attachments
For regular cleaning, it may feel like far too much effort to get every single vacuum attachment out for various jobs around your home. For a spring clean, utilizing those attachments to get in all the awkward and hard-to-reach parts of your home is near essential.
First things first, being armed with one of the best vacuum cleaners will make this a lot easier. No matter if you’ve got all the tips and tricks with your robot vacuum or a vacuum you’ve had for years, there will always be a prime opportunity to use different attachments and settings to get the most out of cleaning with it.
Check which ones you’ve got, use your vacuum manual to figure out what they do, and utilize them to the best of your ability. You might have a hose extension, small dust brush, a crevice tool, or even an upholstery brush that you’ve never used. Now is the time. But, beware you’re not making these 9 vacuum cleaner mistakes to work smarter, not harder.
7. Spruce up your outdoor furniture
Finally, the spring cleaning process doesn’t have to end on the interior of your home. With brighter days on the horizon, it’s time to focus on sprucing up your outdoor furniture ready for when you want to use it again. You might be shocked at the state of your outdoor furniture when you finally venture outside. Fair warning: it may have been severely weathered over the colder and wetter months, especially if you didn’t cover it up or move it into a shed or outhouse.
Have no fear though, it can be renewed and refreshed ready for spring with a simple dish soap solution. Arm yourself with a good scrubbing brush, an old toothbrush, and your outdoor hose to rid your outdoor furniture of any dirt, cobwebs, and bad weather residue. The warmer climate will help them dry and then they’re ready to use again.
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