Do You Have A Spring Cleaning Routine?

Our routine is pretty simple. When the Spring Cleaning bug comes over us, we crank up the music, open the windows, and let the games begin! While we don't have a rigid, bullet-pointed list, we definitely don't stop until we conquer our main cleaning and organizing goals.

5.10.10 cleaning 2.jpeg Once we have chosen the best time to embark on a pretty intense clean for the season, the key for us is to find a good soundtrack, and to ensure that we have lunch or snacks on-hand. We often will get on such a tear that we don't have the time or inclination to stop, so an easy to grab sandwich comes in handy. One small ritual we have is to light s few fragrant candles when we start, so that by the time we're done cleaning the aroma has permeated the air.

For purposes of our routine break-down, let's presume that the house is already tidy, and that we're simply getting down to the nitty-gritty. We've already done the dishes, hung up the clothes on the chair, and filed the random bills that have piled up. Now we're going deep.

Since we usually cover the whole house at once, we start with a thorough dusting of all of the surfaces. We love our swiffer duster, and make sure to get every top shelf, the insides of empty vases, the tops of books — all of the dust-accumulating spots we may not always cover, normally.

Our next step is to strip the bed and put them in the wash. Once the bed is bare, it's time to rotate the mattress, which gives us the opportunity to vacuum thoroughly under the bed — dust bunnies are made much worse with a dog that sheds a lot!

Once we've vacuumed under the bed and put the mattress back on we continue vacuuming the rest of the house. For our super intense clean, we really get the baseboards, move any furniture that we can, and get all the cracks and crevices. We also do the floors of closets (which usually requires moving shoes and things out first), blinds, and window sills.

We'd like to say that we move very efficiently on to our next task, which is the cleaning the remaining floors. But if you really want to know the behind-the-scenes routine, we usually get sidetracked at this point sorting our shoes. (See closet cleaning above.) We rationalize the delay of the "cleaning" portion of the day because decluttering is just as important a step in our routine. Once we're done with the shoes, we often continue with our clothing. Once we've covered these two, we're ready to get back to business.

At this point we'll sweep and mop all of the hard flooring in the house. We're motivated by the fresh smell of Murphy's Oil Soap, so that keeps us going strong. This usually leads us into the bathroom, where we do an intense clean of the toilet, sink, and shower. The whole room should be shining before we're out of it.

Next comes windows. If possible, we often tackle the outsides of the windows, as well as really getting down on the sills. Since this brings us outside, we often end up sweeping the patio and tidying our outdoor area. No intense yard work, though — that's for another day.

This is when we start to wind down, at which point we will often pare down our knick knacks, straighten and adjust art on the walls, and get caught in the occasional micro-clean (computer keyboard, for instance!).

For a grand finish, we usually run the vacuum once more to catch any dust that has settled in the process. We'll re-make the bed, Febreeze any reasonably fabric-y thing in the house, twirl around in the middle of the room like a caricature of a 50s housewife, and collapse in the nearest cozy spot to revel in the cleanliness!

Our Spring Cleaning routine even makes us feel rejuvenated just talking about it. What rituals do you have for your home? Any tips or hints to make the process even more rewarding?

Comments (8)

Gah! AT, please, please, please stop with the abuse of the editorial "we".

It really annoys the hell out of us, and we find it disconcerting to boot.

xoxo

We are newlyweds and will be married a year in July~ I am some what of a clean freak so I already had our spring cleaning list ready!

Here was our this year:
http://adesignstory.com/spring-cleaning/

Alas, yes I *do* have a spring cleaning routine. I decide that I really do need to clean everything, air out the rooms, wash the windows, wipe down baseboards, reorganize closets and all of those tasks I don't do on a regular basis. I set an approximate date to do the work. At the beginning of the week, all heck breaks loose at work, so I delay the job for another week. The next week my trick knee acts up, so I defer the work to the next week to give it time to heal. That week, a co-worker working on a tough project needs my help and this help expands into all of my space time, so I delay the cleaning for yet another week. The next week, my best friend has some serious life drama so I am on call to do telephone counseling around the clock - I start vacuuming the living room, rotate the rug and right after I move the sofa to vacuum behind it, my friend calls in distress (there goes the afternoon and evening). After the call, I collapse on the sofa (which is in the middle of the room at this point) worn out by the marathon call and delay cleaning to the next week. The next week, I trip over the sofa in the dark (I never moved it back because I hadn't vacuumed behind it yet) on the way to the kitchen for a late night snack and can't clean because I broke a toe (or have a serious, painfully bruised shin or some other malady) so the date gets moved into the next week. And so it goes.... It suddenly becomes autumn, I move the sofa back without vacuuming behind it and I dream of actually doing spring cleaning next year...

Is this the fifth time in two weeks that AT has posted a version of how do you clean for spring? When do you clean the house? How much time does it take to clean your house? What is the easiest way to clean the house? Enough.

I don't "spring clean". I do most of the tidying, floor scrubbing, general stuff week to week, with some parts about once a month. If I see dust, I dust. If I don't notice that there's dust, it waits until I do. I try to keep things pretty tolerable all the time, but I don't go nuts over it. Probably once a year of so, I move all the little knick-knacks off their shelves and dust thoroughly, because that's a pain, but since mostly nobody handles the things, the dust isn't too noticible!

I do a wardrobe inspection/overhaul in the fall and in the late spring, usually. I take everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) out of the closet and put it on the bed. I look at every item and decide if I wear it and like it (back to the closet) or like it but don't wear it (closet or Goodwill bag -- it's ok to have some things just to make you smile, even if you don't wear them!), or don't much like it any more (definitely Goodwill bag.) I mend what needs mending or discard it. I hang short sleeved shirts together by color, ditto long sleeves, ditto vests, etc. (The color order doesn't last the re-hanging after a few launderings, but it's nice for a while! Plus it lets me see where there are gaps in my wardrobe after thinning it out, for shopping purposes.)

At Christmas time I do the same basic thing with decorations, getting rid of the ones I don't love any more to make room for new things.

There is usually a point in my year for everything to have a decision made, and I do it then -- I guess clean "mindfully" throughout the year which makes a mad burst of cleaning at some specific moment unnecessary -- which is important since I would never have enough time for eveything at once anyhow!

@KWorld - Thank you for letting me know I'm not alone!!! :)

@KWorld, it sounds like you need a motivational phone call! I have one friend that I IM and setup a time to call. Then we get on the phone and both work on projects. I can clean like crazy while I'm on the phone with her and still catch up. And then when one or both of us has killed the batteries on her phone, we hang up and enjoy our completed tasks. It's fantastic. Otherwise I'd never manage to finish everything anything.