As the days grow longer, those living in cooler climates fling the windows open to freshen the house with warm spring air. Diligent homeowners also break out the cleaning supplies. For those who are so inclined, spring is the perfect time to refresh the home for the seasons ahead. Clean windows welcome sunshine, dust-free curtains and deep-cleaned carpets mean fresh air outside stays fresh indoors, and dirt-free surfaces prep the home for a busy summer on the go.
For those of us less inclined to scrub every nook and cranny in our homes, spring cleaning is less of an exciting opportunity and more of a waste of a perfectly good spring weekend locked indoors with buckets, rags, and cleaners. However, you can’t deny that those corners and crevices need a little attention.
If you’re a homeowner who dreads spring cleaning, focus your efforts where they count most to make the job a bit easier this year.
1. Clean Where You Can See It
If you’ve been dreaming of a home flooded by natural sunlight all summer long, you’ll need to focus on cleaning surfaces that help your home feel light and airy. This means washing windows inside and out, and cleaning surfaces where dust accumulates and can be blown around by a breeze. Clean surfaces you see every day but may not notice, like wall decorations or high-up surfaces such as the tops of doors or window trim. Addressing the small things increases the visual impact of your cleaning efforts and can help your home feel light, airy, and inviting again.
2. Finish an Overdue Project
The idea of attacking a whole-house cleaning project can be daunting, but concentrating on just one task can keep things manageable and less overwhelming — and improve the odds that you’ll complete the task. For example, if your New Year’s resolution was to finally organize your bedroom closet, make that serve double duty as a resolution and the focus of your spring cleaning efforts.
If your resolution included repainting the exterior of your home or similar large project, consider breaking the project into phases or steps, and setting deadlines by which you’ll complete each phase or step. Not only will finishing an overdue project feel great, but the smaller steps serve as benchmarks to celebrate along the way and motivate you to the finish line.
3. Think About Your Health
While you’re going for high-impact cleaning tactics, also consider what cleaning tasks have a real impact on things that matter, like your health. If you haven’t cleaned out the refrigerator in who-knows-how-long, or if you haven’t addressed a wet basement — a significant risk for mold contamination in the home — now is the time to tackle those problems. Keeping health at the core of your spring cleaning efforts will ensure that your work is not in vain.
In addition to addressing dusty surfaces around your home, there’s another source of dirt and dust affecting your health at home: your home’s air ducts. Central air conditioning units work by sucking in air, cooling it, and blowing the air back through the home’s air ducts to cool the home evenly. Considering all the dust built up on surfaces throughout the home, it’s no secret that dust also builds up in the air ducts and get blown around when your air conditioning unit kicks on. All that airborne dust and dirt can aggravate allergies and even cause illnesses in some people.
Spring is a great time to address dirty air ducts before the air conditioning is on. This can improve your home’s indoor air quality and even reduce the amount of dust in the air. If you haven’t had your home’s air conditioning unit serviced, this is also the time to have your unit checked.
(Reprinted with permission from NADCA.com)
