How to Add Extra Freshness to Your Spring Cleaning
I just love the birds chirping outside these days. They bring a beautiful sense of calm and lift my spirits after winter kept us inside.
Even more, I love that spring allows me to open my windows wide, letting the breeze flow through my home as the sunbeams...well, the sunbeams bring my attention to all the floating dust and dirt that we tracked in over the past few months.
This is how I know that we have officially entered the season of “spring cleaning.”
What Exactly Is “Spring Cleaning?”
Most of us know it to be the season of airing out our homes to remove the stuffiness of winter. But did you know that it has deeper origins than, “let’s get clean!?” It’s true. Across different cultures, spring cleaning can be traced back, often tying into religious holidays or new years.
From the Persian new year to ancient Jewish practices leading up to Passover, even in Christianity in the Catholic Church and more Orthodox nations, such as Greece, origins of spring cleaning can be found across each.
In more recent times, particularly in North America and European nations where winter keeps us inside for months on end, spring cleaning has become of practical value, where it is an opportunity to open the windows and push the dust and soot (for coal-based furnaces) outside.
Why is Spring Cleaning Still Important?
In my opinion, we’re busy throughout the year. Most days, we just clean our more heavily used items, doing what we can with the 15-minute “spare time” we have.
Spring cleaning allows us to really get into the corners and remove dust, dirt, fur and hair, and other particles we miss with our every week (if that) cleaning process. It’s the time where we can bring new life into our home by removing all the dust and dirt that has accumulated over the past few months.
For myself, I use this as a time to strip my mattress bare, pulling off the sheets and mattress pad, and freshen absolutely everything. For duvet covers, it’s time to send them to the dry cleaner. Many people have a heavier duvet for the fall and winter months and a lighter one for spring and summer. This is when they switch over to the lighter one.
Spring cleaning is also a wonderful mental health activity for multiple reasons. One of which is that being productive feels good. Another is the feeling of accomplishment and comfort of knowing your home is clean. Truly, truly clean. It gives us a sense of pride in our space. Our home. From a physical standpoint, the air itself is healthier since we’re removing additional dirt/fur/hair that often contributes to breathing issues, such as asthma.
What To Focus On For Spring Cleaning?
Knowing that spring cleaning is beneficial is one thing. Knowing what to clean is a whole other. I know it can seem like an overwhelming list, but trust me, it’s much easier when you break it down, room by room.
So, roll up your sleeves and let’s get to work by moving our way through each room with the following cleaning sequence.
Think Top-to-Bottom, Left-to-Right
Start with your ceiling fans and light fixtures. Those places are where dust loves to cling, but we rarely think of to move a microfibre cloth over.
Then work your way down, moving left to right, cleaning windows, windowpanes, wiping and washing down the walls and even your baseboards. Remove anything on the walls as well, dusting off picture frames along the way.
Complete a general dusting of your shelves, tabletops, and other surfaces, along with the items on them.
Pull out any furniture and vacuum under it. Put everything back in place, do one final vacuum, and voila! You’re done with the room. For the best way to get the deepest clean in your vacuuming, read this blog all about how to vacuum so it doesn’t have to suck.
Now, onto the next room!
Depending on the room itself, along with how organized it is to begin with, how much clutter there is, and so forth, each room will take roughly one-two hours to complete with a deep clean.
Unique Aspects of Each Room
Not all rooms are as easy as wipe, wipe, vacuum, finish. The following are some things to consider for those special rooms.
Kitchen: Pull out the fridge and oven as fur, hair, fallen food bits, and other dust particles tend to gather behind and underneath. Don’t forget to clean on top of the fridge and give the stove hood a thorough washing. Now is also a good time to give the backsplash a deep scrubbing, removing any splashes that may have been missed throughout the year.
Bathroom: As with all other rooms, clean top to bottom, left to right, giving a good scrubbing of the bathtub/shower, getting into the corners, and even cleaning behind the toilet. The exception here is to make sure the toilet is the last thing you clean before you mop the floor. This will make for a more sanitary clean. Read this blog to learn all about the right way to deep clean your toilet.
Garage: remove everything, bikes, storage, vehicles, and do a great sweep and spray down of the floor. This helps to remove all that dust, dirt, and grime that has built up over the winter months.
Extra Spring Cleaning Tips
A few extra tips and hints to help make your cleaning easier.
Hidden Spots: These include the ceiling fans, switch plates, doormats, the outside of your front and back doors, inside your cabinets, and even your pots and pans.
Cleaning Tools: your cleaning tools will save you from unnecessary headaches. Invest in a good cleaning cloth rather than paper towels as this will not leave a film or streak when wiping down stainless steel, mirrors, glass (windows and stovetops) or anything else that has a shiny finish. You can find a detailed list of which tools to use on what and why right here.
Cleaning Products: You do not have to go and invest in products that make all kinds of promises. Rather, diluted dish soap goes a long way, as does vinegar. That said, over here at Clean Club Calgary, we are a big fans of Bar Keepers Friend for when we need something over and above dish soap and vinegar.
This can seem like a lot and feel overwhelming. The key is to break it down, room by room, into smaller, more achievable tasks. Do not feel like you have to complete it all in one day or even in one weekend. For ease, we’ve created a Spring Cleaning Checklist to guide you. Simply download it below and work your way through it over the next month or so.
Of course, you may not want to do any of the spring cleaning yourself. That’s exactly why we’re here - to help with the deep cleaning. Know that there are some things we will not do, such as ironing (you can find these in the FAQ section of our website) but for the most part, deep cleaning is where our sparkle really shines!
If you’re ready to get the freshness of spring back in your home, but prefer to leave the elbow grease to us, then connect for a quote on deep cleaning. Our mops and cloths are ready and waiting!
