When Is the Best Time to Start Spring Cleaning?
When is the best time to start spring cleaning? Now is the perfect time to start. Your home was probably gathering a lot of dirt during the winter months. With the weather becoming warmer, you will want to make sure that both your indoors and outdoors are squeaky clean. Apart from making your house look good, cleaning is a good way to take care of your house and yard, and it can help you identify problems hidden beneath the dirt and clutter. Here are some answers to help you figure out when is the best time to start spring cleaning.
When Should You Start?
There is no definite answer to the question, when is the best time to start spring cleaning? Either you can just start when you sense that the weather is becoming warm, or you can start when you want to start spending more time outdoors. Objectively, it would be best to start spring cleaning when you can set aside a day or two to deep clean your home. This can be a weekend, or if you work weekends, you can even take a day off from work. If you aren’t able to set aside an entire day, the best you can do is to spread out spring cleaning tasks over a longer period of time. Although this is not ideal, at least you will get some things done. In the end, you will have a squeaky-clean house to enjoy your spring.
How to Start Spring Cleaning
Spring cleaning is a wonderful concept. However, most people end up not doing it. This is why you need to make a leap from viewing it as a good idea to actually doing it. There are a few things that you will need to consider if you want to spring clean your home. For instance, you might want to plan with a friend and discuss when is the best time to start spring cleaning? That way, both of you can set time aside to spring clean. That will make you feel accountable. At least there will be someone following up and checking on your progress. You can also tell your spouse, housemate, or mother that you want to spring clean. By making these people aware, you can get motivated to keep your commitment.
Next, you will need to come up with a solid spring cleaning plan. Apart from figuring out when is the best time to start spring cleaning, you also need a plan if you want to move from just talking about spring cleaning to actually doing it. First, come up with a rough outline of what you want to achieve. This will bring substance to your spring cleaning goal. A rough outline serves as a starting point.
Formulate a Cleaning Strategy
If your plan is to do spring cleaning as soon as possible, then you won’t want to waste time. However, there are more questions to answer than just when is the best time to start spring cleaning. Without a proper strategy, your spring cleaning may take a long time to complete. This is why you must come up with a strategy. Your cleaning strategy doesn’t have to be complicated. All you need to do is make some notes ahead of time. This will serve as a guide, and it will help you identify the most complicated and time-consuming spring cleaning tasks.
You can walk around your house with a pen and notebook identifying everything that you need to do. For example, do your wood windows need to be cleaned? Do your bathroom tiles need a deep scrubbing? Do you need to invest in floor refinishing for your garage or kitchen?
After making a list of all the cleaning tasks you want to complete, the next thing will be to arrange them in order of priority. Make sure you include every room in your house. Once you are done with your walkthrough, convert your list into a checklist. When you start cleaning, it will just be a matter of canceling items on your checklist. You will get more done this way, unlike trying to approach things randomly. A checklist also shows you your progress, which is motivation enough to keep you going.
Come Up With a Spring Cleaning Schedule
Before you start cleaning, you will want to sit down and figure out ways to fit the cleaning work into your busy schedule. It can feel quite overwhelming to try and fit your spring cleaning tasks into your day-to-day activities. However, if you plan your schedule carefully, you shouldn’t struggle too much,
Some families prefer to block off an entire day so that they have enough time to thoroughly clean their homes. You can also do the same. This will help you ensure that you have enough time to complete every task. So make sure your calendar is clear and make sure your checklist is ready. Once that’s done, go out and look for all the supplies you need.
If you can’t block off an entire day, then you might need to come up with a different approach. For instance, you can choose to tackle a few spring cleaning tasks at a time. This means you may need to spread the spring cleaning over a couple of days. It’s also important to create a schedule even if you are not doing everything at once. Take a look at your existing schedule and figure out what you can remove. An hour or two of cleaning a day can be enough. With time, you will work through your checklist and complete every task.
Declutter First
Before you dive deep into spring cleaning, you will need to set aside time to declutter. It can be quite difficult to clean your home if there is a lot of clutter everywhere. Apart from that, you also don’t want to spend a lot of time organizing and cleaning things that you will just end up getting rid of. For instance, if you are moving back to the office and you had a home office before, it may be time to use the space for something else. This means office supplies will have to go. So before you clean, take some time to declutter your shelves, closets, and kids’ toys. You should also make sure nothing is left in the junk drawers before you begin spring cleaning your house.
Take a Room By Room Approach
One of the most effective ways to clean your house is to take a room-by-room approach. When you are formulating your strategy, list all the tasks that you will need to tackle in each room. You must also take note of any areas that require extra attention. If you have cleaned any areas recently, you can skip those. You will just have to focus on the parts of your home that have been neglected for a while.
Involve Your Entire Household
To make your spring cleaning a success, you may also need to involve everyone in your home. You will be surprised to learn that even young children can accomplish a lot. However, you may need to assign age-appropriate chores if you intend to involve everyone. To make things fun, you can also throw in some music and come up with rewards for the best cleaners.
Don’t Use Too Many Cleaning Products
You will definitely need some supplies for your spring cleaning. However, it’s best to keep your cleaning products to a minimum. If you buy too many products, they can end up creating clutter. Apart from that, you don’t need a lot of products to begin with. It might be best to use all-purpose cleaners and microfiber cloths. This will work for most of the surfaces in your home. If you need any other specialty cleaners, you can get them as needed.
Focus on the Big Tasks
If you have managed to come up with a spring cleaning checklist and figured out when is the best time to start spring cleaning, the only thing that will be left is to create a schedule for your cleaning. You must make sure that your efforts don’t go to waste. It’s important to ensure that the time you have set aside for cleaning is spent doing just that. There is a lot that can distract you if you are not careful. For instance, you can end up spending a lot of energy on things like dishes, laundry, vacuuming, or weekly tasks. In the end, you will get tired before you do any spring cleaning. The main goal of spring cleaning is to ensure that your home is deep-cleaned. This is why you must focus on cleaning and refreshing things that don’t get cleaned on a regular basis. For this reason, it’s a good idea to start with the bigger tasks and finish with the less difficult ones.
Working With Experts for Outdoor Spring Cleaning
As you are spring cleaning your home, you might also want to hire someone to do the outdoors and to do some complex cleaning tasks for you. You can benefit a lot from having someone with the right equipment and expertise clean your yard and certain areas of your home for you. Once you have figured out the answer to when is the best time to start spring cleaning, the next thing is to figure out where you might need help. For instance, you might need someone to clean your deck. You may also need someone to help you with tasks like sewer cleaning and cleaning the rain gutters. Apart from that, your roof might have gathered some dirt during the winter months. It’s not advisable to climb on your roof to try and inspect and clean it on your own. A roof is a dangerous place. You will definitely need a roofing service to help you with this.
Hire Professionals for Your Deck and Driveway
You may need to hire a residential pressure washing service for your deck and patio. This is part of general maintenance, and it can be part of your spring cleaning as well. As the weather becomes conducive for outdoor gatherings, you will need your deck to be squeaky clean. There are a lot of reasons why you might want to let someone pressure wash your deck. Pressure washing can be quite dangerous. The pressure washer can easily cause injury, especially if you are not too experienced. These washers use several different types of nozzles that regulate the water stream. If you are working with a higher setting, the pressure can go up to 4,000 PSI.
Apart from your deck, you may also need someone to wash your driveway. A pressure washer will leave your driveway clean and presentable. Throughout the year, your driveway can gather a lot of dirt that will cause it to appear stained and dirty. For instance, you can have an oil leak from a car that will leave stains on your deck. It’s important to get these stains out as you are spring cleaning.
With such high levels of pressure, a lot of damage can be done if you lose control of the nozzle. It can cause cuts, bruises, and deep-tissue trauma. It can also cause eye injuries and other bodily harm. An experienced pressure washing company will do the job effectively without anyone getting injured. They also work with the right safety gear to avoid these hazards.
Apart from avoiding injury, professionals can also help to minimize the environmental impact of deck cleaning. For instance, because of a lack of experience, you can end up using a lot of water to clean your deck. Apart from that, careless pressure washing can also allow toxins and polluted water to get into natural sources of water. This can even damage your landscaping and the vegetation in your yard.
Combine Spring Cleaning and Home Maintenance Tasks
It can be a good idea to combine spring cleaning with home maintenance and repair tasks. That way, you can be sure that everything in your home is working as it should. You can hire several professionals to help you check if all the systems in your home are working. An electrician can come to inspect your outlets, water heaters, and wiring to see if everything is in good shape. That way, your home will not only be clean, but it will be in good shape.
Spring cleaning is a wonderful concept. Now that you have an answer to when is the best time to start spring cleaning, you can go ahead and plan. If you don’t plan properly, you may never end up doing it, or you can start and never finish. Set time aside to plan and create a strategy that will help you to do everything efficiently. You must also understand your limitations when it comes to spring cleaning. Leave all complicated tasks like AC system and ventilation cleaning to HVAC maintenance companies and ventilation system cleaners, respectively.