For those of you in the deep south, the question of “Spring Cleaning, Anyone?” may seem a little late this year – after all, it is the second week in April, spring cleaning should be finished, right? For those of us up north – where it finally started to break 50º this week – the question seems almost premature.
If you do a thorough spring cleaning on your house, what exactly do you do? All the rooms? Do you wash the walls? Or just dust them? I’m not sure how many people still have coal furnaces and need to wash their walls, but old habits sometimes diehard. Clean the carpets? Take apart the chandelier and other lighting for a complete wash? Clean out the basement, attic and garage?
I have a bit of a spring-renovation/redecorating bug myself, but not really a spring cleaning impulse. I do not wash my walls, and the only walls in this house that really need dusting are the ones in the family room and Hubby’s office. They are textured paneling of a sort, and the crevices can accumulate dust. I’ve never really noticed dusty walls in this house otherwise, not even when sunlight hits “a certain way”.
As far as our floors go: the rug in our bedroom should be cleaned. We have a rug cleaner, and it resides in an upstairs closet, so there really is no excuse to not get this done. Darn it.
The upstairs hall carpeting, and the carpeting in Sonny-boy’s old room is being ripped out and replaced (oh the pictures this will bring! You have to see what that rug looks like to believe it!). I want Sonny-boy to come box up/giveaway the remains in his closet and dresser and then I can move along with that project.
I convinced Hubby to shovel out the basement in January. We accomplished quite a bit, but there is at least another six hours of organizing left. I think this is really our one spring cleaning project!
I plan on hiring someone to come clean our outside windows. Not only am I a horrible window washer (I leave streaks no matter what I use, regardless of the time of day I wash), but there is no way I will get up on a ladder to do the second floor. I could get Hubby on the ladder, but window washing is too much like housework for him to consider doing it. Not happening.
So, we do have three spring cleaning jobs on my list: basement, carpet in master bedroom and window washing. I should be able to tackle those by the end of the month – Hubby willing.
Spring Cleaning, Anyone? Any tips, ideas or solutions for accomplishing spring cleaning quickly and well?
Marie says
Spring cleaning is a hit or miss kind of thing for me. I ended up doing things when they need to be done. The only thing that gets done the same time every year is washing the windows, blinds and curtains and putting up the storms.
admin says
Come wash my windows, Marie! I truly do suck at it.
Ann
KimH says
I do a pretty thorough spring cleaning on the bottom floor of the house.. it’s a bungalow so it’s not too difficult. I wash walls, ceiling, fans, Windows inside & out and steam the carpet too. I don’t consider the basement or up stairs part of the marathon. I’ve been cleaning on the Windows for a few weeks now and thinking about breaking the chores down into smaller steps instead of a huge long few days of cleaning.
admin says
Kim why do you wash your walls? Dusty? Smoky? I am just curious. My mother always did, but you are younger than I am, so not an “always do it” thing.
Ann
Debb F says
I have begun in between dealing with my animals. I do clean the windows inside and power wash the house and exterior windows. Hey it is a white house so I want it to remain white not white with green growing on it since we have had 2 winters without a true hard frost now. We have made great strides here in organization and still sorting through the shed, but we are getting there. We have been removing carpets and wall paper and repainting since we moved in here, so I just have to dust the walls and wash the baseboards and the floors and I too do a lot of washing blinds , curtains and so forth, but that is because I have an asthmatic son and cats so it is a perpetual thing for me. My battle against cat hair and dust. LOL. My life is so exciting!
We got the cars cleaned up last weekend and the one waxed and one to go, that was a big thing. Not much snow this year but they sure used the heck out of the salt supply on the roads. I started cleaning out the gardens….
admin says
Debb the further south you go, the more often people pressure wash. I was at a property with Hubby in Louisiana, and they had someone on staff FULL-TIME to pressure wash. Now on the other hand, when I pressure washed our house, even though I had it on a sweeping spray, I still left nozzle marks. I haven’t done it since, and that was 5-6 years ago.
Ann
Tegan says
As much as I love cleaning, I hate this yearly ritual. Hubby already washed the outside windows and repainted the back walls facing the yard. I’ve just begun tackling the living room but we are also in the middle of redecoration so “spring cleaning” will span for the entire season given our work schedule. One good thing is we are forced to use up our stockpile of foods and HBA items because I have no time to shop with all this cleaning.
I do have a question for people with a carpet cleaners. Which brand of solution do you find to work the best? We just bought a bissell and I’ve been using the sample bottle that was included in the box. Thanks ahead!
admin says
We have used bissel, steam vac and hoover, and the best one we have tried is the Hoover Platinum Collection Pet Plus Carpet-and-Upholstery Detergent
– even though Max doesn’t have accidents, and he has hair not fur so he doesn’t leave doggie-smell behind.
I will post this as a question next week, Tegan and hopefully you will get more responses.
Ann
Tegan says
Thanks Ann, your link reminds me to look at Amazon. I’ll wait for more responses before placing an order.
Sara says
Spring cleaning…..yes I’ve thought about it but that’s as far as I’ve gotten! LOL I’ve been really sick for the past month, so I haven’t felt up to much anyway. What is more important right now on my to do list is planning the garden for summer/fall and deciding what I want to grow. Maybe you could do a post on this soon? 😉
admin says
Oh Sara I hope you are feeling better now!
The garden post is scheduled for next Friday. Is that soon enough?
Ann