Spring Cleaning Basics

Spring Cleaning is the annual project of freshening up, cleaning and even reorganizing the home after a long winter.  In a 2013 poll , 72% of American households do some sort of spring cleaning, which was up 10% from 2012. The room that is usually on the top of the cleaning list is the bedroom. On average it takes up to a week to complete all of the projects on the spring cleaning checklist. Some early adaptors have already started and completed their spring cleaning projects while others are just in the beginning stages.

Spring Cleaning Checklist

Spring cleaning, reorganization and remodeling projects can be quite the daunting task. The most important thing to remember is to start with a plan and a goal for your project. Create a spring cleaning checklist of your goals and spring cleaning projects.  Doing so will give you a sense of accomplishment when you can cross that task off of your list. Break down your home cleaning projects into smaller easily attainable tasks. You can overachieve and get your spring cleaning checklist completed in a weekend, but it is best to spread the project over a few weeks. Make it a family project and get everyone involved. The more people that help, the quicker the project will be completed.

Spring Cleaning and Reorganizing

A major component of a spring cleaning project is decluttering and reorganizing. Sort through the items in the room you are cleaning and decide what you want to keep in the room versus what you want to throw away, donate, sell or place in storage. Make sure to remove the items that will not be going back into the room as soon as possible. Move these items to storage within your house or rent a storage unit for the belongings. Before you are ready to put the items that you want to, thoroughly clean the room from top to bottom.

Spring Cleaning Tips

In order to help you through your spring cleaning projects, here are 10 great tips to help you make the task easier and get completed faster.

1. Make sure you have all of the proper cleaning supplies for your spring cleaning tasks. Microfiber clothes are great for dusting and cleaning. Invest in a good vacuum cleaner with extensions so you can get the cobwebs in the corners and on the walls.
2. The top of your spring cleaning checklist should be the high traffic and high use areas such as the kitchen, living room and bathrooms.
3. Make sure that you have ample moving and packing supplies  including boxes, packaging tape and filler material for packing away the extra or seasonal items.
4. Do your home cleaning projects room by room. Each room of the house will have special requirements, such as cleaning the tiles in the bathroom to shampooing rugs and carpets.
5. Consider washing the windows, deep cleaning carpets and rugs, cleaning curtains, and washing down and scrubbing lawn and garden furniture more than once a year.
6. Clean out the refrigerator and pantry. Throw out any expired food. Wash down the shelves and the cabinets in the pantry and refrigerator and sweep and vacuum the floor of the pantry. This is a good time to reorganize your pantry to make it work for you and your family!
7. Don’t forget to clean out your medicine cabinet. This is often neglected in spring cleaning projects. Throw out expired medications, cosmetics and other beauty supplies in your medicine and linen closets.
8. To keep your newly cleaned room organized, make sure that items in the room are put away in their proper place every evening. Do not leave dirty dishes sitting in a sink. Wash them and then put the clean pots, pans and dishes away. Organize mail on a daily basis and throw away or recycle catalogs and magazines that you do not plan on reading.

Each room in a spring cleaning project will bring its own challenges and rewards. The biggest reward is finishing the spring cleaning list and finishing your de-clutter and reorganizing projects. Rent a storage unit to place the items that you still want to keep, but no longer have the room for. ezStorage has a variety of storage unit sizes that can fit all of your home storage needs. You can also purchase packing supplies at each of our locations.