We have had such a mild winter that I’m already in spring cleaning mode. The fact that my daughter is getting married in May and we are having a bridal shower at my house in April may have something to do with it.
Because I’m a procrastinator I spent some time on the internet looking for the fastest and easiest ways to deep clean my house. There were no magic tricks available but there was lots of advice.
The first thing I read is when you set out to do a deep clean, make sure that is what you are doing. Don’t do the cleaning you do every week or the tidying up, do the deep cleaning.
Anything in a high spot, low spot or tight spot should be on your list. If you need a ladder or have to move furniture it will definitely be on the deep clean list.
Do one room at a time, running from room to room not only wastes time but it can kill your motivation because nothing seems to be getting finished.
Do the smallest or least used room, it will go quickly and help motivate you to do the rest. I have a bathroom in my basement that hardly ever gets used so I’ll start there.
Another great hint was to heat your cleaning solution in the microwave for one minute before you spray every thing down, the heat helps loosen the dirt.
After you spray, wait a minute or so, let the solution do most of the hard work for you. Then grab an old toothbrush, a scrub brush and some old rags and start scrubbing away. It helps to have a bucket of clean water to rinse your cloth in so you don’t keep putting cleaner back on the area you just cleaned.
Baseboards, windowsills, door crevices and the top of door frames collect an amazing amount of dirt, scrub well.
Since you are only doing the deep cleaning it may not seem like the room is any cleaner but when you come back and do your weekly cleaning the room will shine.
This is also the time to clean all those cabinets and closets and drawers you’ve been shoving things in all winter long. Be ruthless, chances are you don’t need most of this stuff but someone else could use it so use this time to thin things out and your closets will stay clean and organized much longer.