3 Uncommon Cleaning Tools That Will Make Your Spring Cleaning So Much Easier

Rather than an all-or-nothing approach, fumbling to decide which checklist to use and making lofty but unrealistic plans that make me disappointed in my progress, I’m approaching this year’s spring cleaning with intention. Yes, I want to wash the curtains and stop making excuses about the window tracks, but more than anything I crave that feeling of freshness and newness that makes me feel at home in my own home.

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Everything involved in spring cleaning is worth the effort. But overcoming the inertia or the overwhelm (or both!) is a feat in itself and not being able to overcome that can prevent you from basking in the full effect of that spring cleaning glow.

You know what gets me out of a cleaning slump, though? Some new-to-me cleaning tools I’m excited to use. There’s no better time to put a little pep in your cleaning step than now, as we’re getting ready for the most thorough cleaning job of the year.

Here are three somewhat unusual tools that make it easier to accomplish a really deep clean. Plus, they’ll give the kind of instant morale booster that motivates you to keep going.

If you’ve never used a depiller, you’re in for a treat: It’s a machine designed to remove fabric pills from clothes or upholstery. It could take a bit of patience, but the result is draw-dropping good. One slow run of this little handheld miracle worker can take years off the appearance of your favorite sofa or chair. Definitely take a before and after picture of this rewarding task.

After using them to slough off marker-stained skin in the shower as a kid, pumice stones are back in my life but this time as a cleaning kit secret weapon. I’ve used them recently to scrub out stubborn hard water stains in one of our toilets and to erase away splattered paint that had dried in our utility room sink. Pumice stones can help you scrub away the most obstinate burnt-on grime in ovens or on grills, too.

When I used to think of using a razor blade to scrape away sticky stuff or paint on windows, or to eliminate the seemingly untouchable burns on a glass stovetop, it would give me nails-on-a-chalkboard heebie-jeebies. But now I know that not only is it not an unpleasant experience, it’s a gratifying one. Those mysterious marks that never come up off your tile floors when you mop, the sticker residue on the mirror, and yes, even the black marks on your cooktop can all be gone with a scraping tool or just a simple razor blade.