Make Your Space Feel Bigger With This Mindful Cleaning Mission

This year, we’re on a mission to help you tackle spring cleaning on your time. Each weekday until April 13, we’ll guide you through a plan to clean and organize different areas of your home, but you’ll have the flexibility to choose exactly what to work on and how long you have to dedicate to the job.

Each year, the breezy spring weather is a great reminder that home doesn’t have to end at your entryway. Our yards, our streets, our neighborhoods — they’re all “home,” too. Anything you can do to bridge the gap between inside and out is going to feel like you’re mentally adding square footage to your space.

So today we’re looking outward with our spring cleaning, touching on a few small but significant tasks that will not only make your home cleaner but also make you feel a little more in tune with the world outside.

Decide how much time you can dedicate to tackling these inside and out tasks today, then choose your micro-mission:

Clean, repair or refinish your patio furniture. If you have your outdoor furniture covered up for the winter, uncover it and then take stock: Is everything in good shape? Is anything in need of repair? Or do your pieces just need a deep clean? Whatever it is, get going on it! What you need to do depends on the state and material of your furniture, but here is a good place to start:

• How To Clean Patio Furniture

Spring cleaning is also a great time to restain or refinish your outdoor wood furniture as needed. The pieces you leave outside take a beating from sun, rain and snow, but if you dedicate time to taking care of them regularly, they’ll last a lifetime.

Re-pot your plants. If your green friends have managed to survive the winter, now is the time to pay them back for their resilience with a little bit of love and elbow room. The idea is to give them fresh, nutritious soil and a slightly bigger pot for their roots to grow out a bit. You can follow the step-by-step instructions right here:

• How To Re-Pot Your House Plants

Wash or wipe down your front door. Grab a rag and your favorite cleaning supplies and give your main door(s) a good clean. Don’t forget to clean around the top and sides of the door itself, as well as the door frame and the threshold on the floor. The idea is to give yourself a sparkling clean front door that greets you warmly when you come home.

Shake out your door mat. Or give it a hose down, if it’s the kind that can handle it. Just spend your minute making your welcome mat even more welcoming for you and everyone who comes over.

Does it feel like spring where you are? Are you ready to get outside this season?