Spring Cleaning

10 Areas in the Living Room Most People Forget to Dust

published Mar 25, 2021
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If you’ve watched an episode of Taryn Cleans it All or done a cleaning cure with me before, today’s lesson is going to sound familiar: You should always clean from top to bottom.

It’s natural to want to start at eye level, cleaning whatever cluttered, dusty, or dirty surface that inspired you to bring out your cleaning kit. But gravity exists. And if you clean something up high after you’ve already cleaned something at eye-level, dust and dirt will fall and muck up your already-cleaned surface.

You don’t have to clean top to bottom — it’s just more efficient. If efficiency doesn’t matter as much to you as motivation, and you just want to start with the thing you feel most inspired to clean no matter where it exists in the room, that’s fine too!

But in the spirit of cleaning top to bottom, we’re going to kick off our five days of spring cleaning in the living room by looking up…

Day 11: Dust the light fixtures and everything up high in the living room.

Grab your dusting tools (if you have something with an extendable handle, that will be handy!) and head to your living room. Then, just look up. Your goal today is to dust the out-of-sight and out-of-reach areas that don’t always get attention in your routine cleaning.

Here are some areas you might want to hit:

  • The ceiling fan
  • Ceiling or wall-mounted light fixtures
  • The tops of door frames and window frames
  • The tops of your curtain rods and finials
  • The tops of picture frames that hang on the wall
  • The top and sides of a wall-mounted TV
  • The top and sides of wall-mounted radiators or air conditioning units
  • Vents or ductwork on or near the ceiling
  • Exposed rafters, ceiling molding, or other architectural details
  • The tops of tall bookshelves or cabinets

How you do this depends on the tools you have. If you need to grab a step ladder and get hands-on with your microfiber cloth or handheld duster, that works. The workflow for a day like today is just noticing what needs to be dusted, and finding a way to do it.

Taryn's Tips

When you dust ceiling light fixtures, don’t forget to dust exposed LED and CFL lightbulbs. Because they’re so long-lasting, they also collect plenty of dust.

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