Renew & Refresh Your Home With These Key Spring Cleaning Areas

Spring is here! Are you jumping for joy!? I know I am. There definitely is a spring in my step.

 

After a long dreary cold winter, I welcome the beauty and life giving feeling that comes with spring. Trees are flowering, tulips are coming up, weather is getting warmer and overall comes a feeling of renewal. With spring comes Easter, which is all about renewal and rebirth of our Lord and Savior as he rose from the dead. 

I think that feeling of rebirth after everything is dead or dormant in the winter is what makes spring so pleasant. Everything becomes fresh!

With that idea of freshness, I always get the itch to do some spring cleaning, plus, at Maid For You that’s our specialty!  Spring is the time to air everything out and get rid of the dust and staleness. 

To bring freshness and new life into your home this spring, get down and dirty with a little spring cleaning as you revive some of those hard-to-reach and oftentimes overlooked areas.

Know someone who would love our help spring cleaning? Refer them here. When your referral books a Top to Bottom Deluxe Cleaning and becomes a recurring customer, you’ll get a $100 Visa gift card after they hold their third appointment! Do they just need a one-time clean? Well, then you’ll get a $25 Visa gift card after they hold their Top to Bottom Deluxe Cleaning. Exciting right!

 

Let’s Kick Off Your Spring Cleaning

 

Air Out The House

To kick off your spring cleaning, first things first is to do an air out of the house. Open up the house for at least two hours and just get fresh air flowing through. Turn on those ceiling fans too so they can help air circulate and shake off some of their own dust! Indoor air can be so polluted so freshening up your space is a must!

 If it’s cold where you are, pick a relatively warm day or as warm as you can get, turn off the heat and bundle up. I’ve heard this called a freeze-out. Here in Warminster, we’re lucky enough to have some days that can be in the 60’s so you don’t have to do the freeze-out. Still, be sure to turn down the thermostat so you don’t waste energy while you open your windows. 

 

Start From The Top Down

After the airing out, or while it’s going on, do some spring cleaning and start from the top down. There is nothing worse than when you clean an area, and then clean something higher dust and dirt fall to where you just cleaned. When you start up high, you’ll avoid this.

Areas to clean first:

• Ceiling Fans
• Tops of Cabinets
• Tops of Hutches and Other Tall Furniture 
• Wall Shelves & Book Shelves
• Tops of Curtain Rods (Those ends get dusty!)
• Trim Above Window and Door Frames
• Top of the Refrigerator
• Cabinet Above the Microwave (For microwaves with vents above the stove)
• Ceiling Above the Stovetop (This can get messy from cooking and grease)

 

Clean Your Upholstery 

At Maid For You, vacuuming under cushions is a standard part of our cleaning service, but if you’re not a customer, this could be something that’s been neglected! Vacuuming your upholstery, the top, sides and undersides of cushions and underneath the cushions helps to get rid of unwanted dust and allergens AND will extend the life of your furniture. 

 

Vacuum, Shake Out, And Wash Your Curtains!

Also part of your upholstery care is the curtains. Most people don’t think about regular maintenance on curtains, but they can also harbor dust and allergens. Take them outside and shake them out, and give them a good airing. Vacuum them as well. If the manufacturer’s care instructions on the tag allow it, give them a wash in the washing machine. 

 

Clean Your Appliances

This one is a biggie and often gets overlooked! Your appliances work hard for you regularly and maintenance will help them last longer. 

• Clean out the dryer vent. Built up lint is a common fire hazard.  I know this happened to me.
• The fridge. Grab your spouse or a friend and pull the fridge out and give the area behind it a vacuum. You’ll be amazed (and probably repulsed ) by the amount of crumbs to vacuum up. For the interior,  you can add a fridge cleanout onto your service, but if you prefer to do it yourself, starting from the top down, take everything out of the fridge and clean the sides and the shelves and door shelves.  I love Melaleuca’s Tough and Tender for this job.
• Pull out your oven and clean behind it! Pull out the shelves and clean the inside and the door. We love Bar Keeper’s Friend to help get rid of tough built-up stains.  
• Run a cleaning product such as Affresh or other similar cleaners through your washing machine and dishwasher. 

 

Clean the Insides of Your Cabinets

Pro-tip for you! Just like you want to clean from the top down, clean from the back to the front. Your cleaning will be easier and more effective.

• Go through and throw out old spices, mixes, stale foods and expired foods
• Consolidate where you can. Have 4 containers of oregano? No? Must just be me. Whatever you have multiple of, consolidate them if you can, especially since containers tend to be only partially full even when they’re new from the store. Keep all your spices together. Keep mixes together, pastas together, canned fruits together, ethnic foods together etc….you get the picture. 
• Organize by use. Things you use almost every time you cook such as olive oil, salt, and pepper, keep those together in one area for ease of access.
• Wipe out the crumbs

 

Clean The Baseboards

This area is one that can get dirty fast and easily, especially if you have kids and pets! You may need to even repaint the tops of your baseboards every few years, but in between, you can get away with a vacuum and wet wipe. In our top to bottom cleaning we wet hand wipe your baseboards and this is impactful! In maintenance cleanings, we’ll vacuum them with the vacuum hose. 

If you’re doing this yourself, save your knees by using the extension on the vacuum hose if you have one. You can also pick up a Swifter with a long arm to make this easier! 

As you begin your spring cleaning, don’t feel the need to tackle all of these areas in one day. Pick one to two areas a week to clean. This will keep your spring cleaning list manageable and help you avoid burning out and calling it quits. 

Rome wasn’t built in a day and your spring cleaning doesn’t have to be done in one either. Spreading it out over several weeks can help you love on and care for your home without overworking you!   You don’t want to tackle this job yourself???? Call Maid For You and book your Top to Bottom Deluxe Deep cleaning service today. 

Need some EFFECTIVE and NON-TOXIC cleaning products? Here at Maid For You we LOVE LOVE LOVE and use Melaleuca products. Ready to give them a try? Reach out to me at lisa@themaidforyou.com and I can help you get signed up.

Happy Cleaning!