Spring Cleaning!

[Hudson_Hawk]

I don't know about all of you, but I'm in full spring cleaning mode. I spent last weekend cleaning out the garage and cleaning up the yard and soon I will be tackling the house. We're planning on having a yard sale over Memorial Day Weekend, so I'm psyched to get rid of a ton of junk. I feel like we have very little room in our house, but in reality it's a 3 br split level with a finished basement so there's plenty of room. We just have so much CRAP crammed everywhere. Seriously, right now my dining room has TWO hutch cabinets in it! One was a recent gift, a family heirloom and the other was the old one which now needs to be disposed of. I'm such a pack rat, but I love the feeling of purging stuff every once in awhile. It's so freeing.

I'd love to hear all of your strategies for tackling spring cleaning. Do you go room by room and purge and clean at the same time, or purge the entire house and then clean? Do you try to do it all in one day or do you extend it over several weekends? How in-depth do you go? I know some people who wash the walls and remove all area rugs to be aired outside (I might do this this year!!).

Also-what are your "secret" tips for cleaning? I just read one- lining a shower door with a thin coat of furniture polish every three months or so will keep it from getting scummy.

 

[neatfreak]

I guess my name says it all-I am ALWAYS in spring cleaning mode! I constantly have a box and a few bags going for goodwill and I bring stuff over there VERY frequently. I can''t stand clutter.

My secret is that I do it in small bits all year rather than letting it pile up. Feels like less of a huge undertaking that way and my house stays cleaner and we have more room!

 

[soocool]

I tackle one room at a time. I started with the master bedroom closet and my dresser drawers. I first try on all my "iffy" clothes/shoes and decide to keep, donate, or throw away/use a s rags. While I have the clothes out I can give the closet a throrough cleaning. My husband's closet is another thing. I do not touch anything in there. He forbade me!

Next I actually swiffer the walls in our bedroom! So much dust accumulates there. Then I move on to the ceiling fans, frames, then the floors by moving furniture out of the way and getting all the dust behind there. I finally wipe down the doors and molding with a damp dustrag.

I then proceed to the other rooms doing the same thing and will do it all over again in the fall.

With the kitchen and bathrooms, this is the time of year I clean and seal the granite and oil the cabinets. I oil all the cabinets again in the fall.

 

[doodle]

Um...my spring cleaning consists of scouting the internet for threads about cleaning in the hopes that someone very neat and motivated will volunteer to clean my house for me because it''s scary.

I tend to use laundry baskets when I''m cleaning--load anything and everything into them, and since they''re portable, I can tote the basket around and deliver various items to other areas of the house without having to make 14 trips. This is particularly useful with shoes--I currently have 26 pairs of shoes by the front door (literally, 26--I actually got up to go count, haha), so if I ever get the motivation to put them back in my closet where they belong (I plan to do this some time in December before my relatives come over

)I''ll get all of them upstairs in one trip with a basket as opposed to trying to carry all of them upstairs at one time on my own, dropping about half of them on the stairs, thus winding up with half of my shoes living behind the couch until we move out because I lack the motivation to climb over the back of my couch to retrieve them.

 

[Italiahaircolor]

I have help all year long, so my house never really gets to out of control..but spring is a really good time to jump start deep cleaning.

I usually decide on everything I don''t want any more...furniture, lights, clothing, electronics, or whatever...and find a nice organization to take them. The I move into re-organizing what I do want to keep. Clothing I''m ''iffy" on will be hung backwards in the closet, and if they have been worn/righted by fall...they are on the chopping block. Basically, the little things. My cleaning lady does the deep down cleaning for me...so my job is more organizational.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Italia I''m so jealous...I really really want a cleaning lady

 

[Bia]

Date: 4/30/2009 11:01:48 AM
Author: Hudson_Hawk
Italia I''m so jealous...I really really want a cleaning lady

ooooh me too! I''m green

FI and I are at our wits end. The apartment is so cluttered because we have too much stuff that needs to be thrown/given away. So since I don''t have class this Saturday, that''s what we are doing. We are going to tackle two closets...and believe me, that''s enough for one weekend

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Seriously I don''t know where the clutter comes from. A lot of it we manage on a weekly basis-mail, etc. But other stuff just accumulates out of thin air! When I moved in with FI I took SO much stuff to Good Will. Like several jeep-loads full of stuff as well as furniture. I feel like I could take another Uhaul full of stuff over at this point. Which is why we''re having a yard sale. I''m really nervous about people not wanting our stuff though...

 

[luvthemstrawberries]

I need to let go of my inner packrat and seriously get rid of some clutter. FI can't stand it - he always asks if he can do all the cleaning b/c he'd just throw out 90% (his words exactly) of the stuff in there. Haha. And unfortunately, most of the stuff inside is mine. Most of his stuff is boxed up in the garage, which is a whole other undertaking in itself.

We're planning to clean out our garages (detached) this weekend - I got him a big Craftsman toolchest for Christmas, and it's still in its box since there's nowhere to put it yet. And there are lots of clothes inside that we both need to go through and donate. I probably wear 25% of the things I have - it's sad. And there's lots of things inside - just JUNK - but some of it is worth keeping, I just have no storage room. One requirement when we have a house is going to be STORAGE space!!!

I also have deep cleaning I need to do. Bathrooms, walls, room corners, vents. I'd LOVE to steamclean the carpet too.

My biggest aggravation is the dust. We rent where we are right now, and I can't understand where it all comes from. The kitchen is the grossest - since we cook there, the dust that gathers on top of the frig and back of the stove is actually greasy dust - so nasty. I'm a stickler for regular cleaning, but sometimes it's almost too much to keep up with.

Everything won't get done this weekend - probably over the course of the next few weekends.

 

[tigian]

My husband and I usually vacuum and dust once a week-give or take. I clean the kitchen everyday to prevent any nasty build up on the counters or stove. I go through my closet a couple times a year and put aside things that haven''t been worn in over a year. If it hasn''t been worn for whatever reason, it gets donated. I have a box of things I will be bringing to a consignment shop in the Fall. I do the same thing with the kitchen. If I haven''t used something in a year, it goes. I hate clutter although sometimes I look for things that I threw out. I figure if I can do without something for a year, I really don''t need it.
Thinking about all this, I think I will do some spring cleaning on Saturday! It will be so nice to have an organized house!

 

[soocool]

Date: 4/30/2009 10:29:23 AM
Author: Italiahaircolor
I have help all year long, so my house never really gets to out of control..but spring is a really good time to jump start deep cleaning.

I usually decide on everything I don''t want any more...furniture, lights, clothing, electronics, or whatever...and find a nice organization to take them. The I move into re-organizing what I do want to keep. Clothing I''m ''iffy'' on will be hung backwards in the closet, and if they have been worn/righted by fall...they are on the chopping block. Basically, the little things. My cleaning lady does the deep down cleaning for me...so my job is more organizational.

What a great idea. i am going to remember that nexttime!

 

[tyty333]

I dont usually get around to spring cleaning until the fall

.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

My secret is moving. This spring and last spring we moved and both times we took as an opportunity to purge. The main target is all the kids'' toys. The problem, however, is I will fill up boxes with old McDonald''s Happy Meal toys and random junk the kids get and never play with and if the boxes aren''t taken to the thrift store before the kids see them, they dig everything out and put it all back in their rooms.

I''m not good about a main "spring clean," of windows and stuff because I have my basic cleaning list and do that weekly and am too lazy to do the rest. Things I cannot stand are unswept entry ways (both inside and out) and unclean wood floors. I hate the feel if anything is on the floors and half my house has wood so I get a lot of exercise from brushing the broom around.

 

[zoebartlett]

My husband and I approach cleaning so differently. It takes him all weekend practically to do just one room, never mind the whole condo. And we live in 1000+ sq. ft., so it''s not as if it''s a large house or anything. I try to focus on one room at a time, but sometimes I get bored and do a little in one room, then a little in another room. It varies.

If I''m cleaning out my closet, I usually take everything out that''s lying on the floor and pile it on my bed. That way I can go through things easily and make piles as I sort through things. I pack up clothes to donate and leave them by the door until I take them to my car. Then they usually sit in my car for a while until I feel like dropping them off. So I guess you could say that I work really hard to clean and organize, but the follow through of dropping off clothes, books, etc. -- not so much.

I leave vacuuming and dusting to do last, once all the clutter is dealt with.

I love putting things in containers! Some people love hardware stores, some like clothing stores. Me, I LOVE container stores and the aisles in Target and Walmart where those items are kept. It''s too bad that we don''t have the real Container Store near me.