Spring has officially sprung, and while the whole of the UK is currently in lockdown, there hasn’t been a better opportunity to get your house spick-and-span.
While cleaning might not be at the top of your list of things to do during the first week of lockdown, it soon will be. Spending every day for weeks in your home in a messy environment isn’t the idea of happiness for many! You want your home to be somewhere pleasant and enjoyable, and this can only be achieved by first tackling your spring cleaning.
The great thing about the lockdown happening in spring is that many people find they have extra energy with the sun staying out longer and the temperatures starting to warm up. This extra energy can then be used to buzz around the house and knock off all those chores from your to-do list that you have been meaning to do for ages.
Don’t know where to start? Here’s a checklist to help you get all your cleaning done.
Your Floors
Hardwood, tile, carpet, concrete — no matter what kind of flooring you have in your home, it probably needs a good deep clean. Give your tile or concrete floors a good mopping (you may need to get on your hands and knees to really dig into the grout on your tile floors) so they sparkle.
You might think hardwood floors need mopping often as well, but you can actually ruin it this way. You only need to wet-clean hardwood floors once every two months or so, and a weekend of spring cleaning is the perfect opportunity. For your carpets, a good vacuuming could do the trick, but if they’re especially dirty, you may want to rent a carpet cleaner. However, carpet cleaners are tricky to handle if you haven’t used one before. Therefore, you might be better of waiting until the lockdown has been lifted and seeking out the carpet cleaning services London has to offer to do the job properly for you, so you can get to work on other tasks.
Your Windows
Let the sunshine in without any wintery streaks and smudges on your windows. Give both the inside and the outside of your windows a wash with some glass cleaner and you may be surprised at how much it feels like your home can breathe afterwards. Here’s a pro tip: wash your windows on a cloudy day so the sun doesn’t dry the glass cleaner before you’ve had a chance to wipe it away. This prevents streak marks.
Your Countertops and Cabinets
Countertops and cabinets in your kitchen and bathroom could use a good wipe down. It’s likely that you regularly clean the countertops, but not many people regularly clean their cabinets. Over time, build-up accumulates, especially in the kitchen and especially if you don’t turn on your exhaust hood over your stove to keep grease particles from settling when you cook. Use a cleaner with grease-cutting action for the kitchen and mold-fighting action for the bathroom.
Your Appliances
While you’re in the kitchen, give all your stainless steel appliances a good clean. Why have stainless steel if it isn’t shiny and sparkling clean anyway? Wipe down all of your appliances — from your fridge to your kettle and everything in between. Speaking of your fridge, now is the perfect opportunity to clean the inside of it as well.
Your Closets
Feeling ambitious? Having organised closets is the key to an organised home. Go through your closets one by one and get rid of anything you haven’t used in a while. If you’re having a hard time paring down, you can make three piles: a ‘must keep’ pile, a ‘nice to keep’ pile, and a ‘not keeping’ pile. Then, once everything has been sorted, you can decide which of your ‘nice to keep’ items actually belong in the ‘must keep’ pile, or if you can part with some of them.
