This Important Final Task is the Punctuation Mark on Your Spring Cleaning

It’s always recommended that, when you’re cleaning a home from top to bottom, you… start at the top and end at the bottom. There’s a thing called gravity that makes sure all the dust and dirt you swiped from higher-up surfaces ends up on tables, then when you wipe the tables, it all goes onto the floor. Like one big, apartment-sized drip tray.

If you’ve been cleaning a while, you already know all about cleaning top to bottom. It’s more important when you’re cleaning all at once, and less important for a one-task-at-a-time challenge like Spring Cleaning. But polishing off your floors and rugs is still a nice punctuation mark on this group cleaning therapy we’re taking on together.

Grab whatever tools you normally use to clean your floors, and get started! The ultimate challenge is to vacuum and pick up all the rugs, then clean every inch of floor before putting them back down. If that’s too much, it’s ok to clean in place, weaving around furniture as needed. Or you can choose to do the pick-it-all-up deep clean, but only in one room. It’s totally up to you!

If you have rugs:

• Either vacuum them in place, or deep clean them by moving all the furniture off the rug, and flipping and vacuuming it from both sides a few times.
• If you see any discoloration, spot-treat it by blotting at it with a carpet-cleaning spray or soapy water on a rag.

If you have wall-to-wall carpets:

• Vacuum them like usual. If you have pets, you could also give them a rake-through with a pet hair glove or squeegee to get everything up out of the carpet fibers.
• If you think your carpets need more love, leave yourself a reminder to rent or borrow a carpet cleaning machine, or hire professional carpet cleaners to come out when everything opens back up for business.

If you have hardwoods, concrete, linoleum, or other hard-surface flooring:

• Sweep and/or vacuum your floors, moving or sliding furniture out of the way as you’re able, to do a really thorough job
• Follow up by mopping in your usual way, with your usual cleaner

The last step—maybe the most important—is to marvel at your clean home and revel in the pride you feel at tackling some very important spring cleaning tasks off your list.

And that list we made on day two? If you’re feeling motivated, this Spring Cleaning challenge doesn’t have to end. Make a plan to do one thing from your list every day or every week until the end of spring or the end of *gestures at everything* all this. Or, if you prefer to be hands-off, you can join our Weekend Projects series which tackles cleaning, home maintenance, and self-care tasks all year long.

Until then, I hope you have a peaceful, happy and healthy spring at home. If you have any cleaning questions for me, or just want some support, I’m available on Instagram anytime. Take care!

• You can visit the 2020 Spring Cleaning page if you miss any assignments
• Download and save or print the Spring Cleaning Calendar
• Share your progress on Instagram or Twitter: #ATSpringCleaning
• Join the The Apartment Therapist Facebook group and catch up with fellow cleaners