On some weekends, we skip cleaning, either due to social events or feeling we deserve and would benefit more from a rest. Usually we spend a couple of hours on weekly cleaning, and then enjoy the smells and sparkle of a newly cleaned house with fresh flowers. We vacuum all the floors and wet mop the wood and linoleum. Careful vacuuming, sometimes using a hand-size brush on the end rather than a floor attachment, gets the edges, the floor around the stove and fridge and entries and makes mopping easier. Chasing particles with a wet mop is more frustrating than vacuuming carefully the first time. While vacuuming, we often sweep the porches, since they seem to need it weekly just like floors.
That small vacuum attachment can make your dusting go quickly, if you use the vacuum on the tables, shelves and areas to be dusted. Don't forget to look up for cobwebs, especially if you have high ceilings like we have. We like to use a spray on our dust cloth and of course, glass cleaner on the glass table surfaces. That leaves the bathroom to be cleaned, wiping down the shower walls and tile which we have on most walls. This is where you can really see the shine restored to the room. It's the floor mopping throughout, which we do last, which gives the house its clean, refreshing smell!
Every two or three months you will want to vacuum window sills, blinds, curtains -- any place you don't get in the weekly cleaning. If you have baseboards and panel doors, this is the time to clean them. We have passage doors that stay open, so the backs of these against the wall only get cleaned a few times a year. Some of our windows get cleaned every couple of months, too. Clean windows add so much pleasure to a home, bringing in the outdoors and light. On this quarterly cycle, we like to give the kitchen walls and vertical surfaces a good cleaning with a grease cutting solution of soap like Simple Green or an environmentally friendly TSP substitute.
Do you have a basement that magnetizes clutter like ours does? This is a good place to start the annual cleaning. Chances are that you don't live down there, so you don't think of cleaning it that often. Putting away our gear can easily take a half-day, as the seasons change and we drop the tennis rackets in the corner, taking out the Thanksgiving decorations and leaving the putting away for another day. But how good it does feel when the basement floor has been vacuumed and mopped and all the dust removed!
From there, as part of your Spring cleaning, consider whether your carpets and upholstery upstairs are ready for cleaning. Honestly, I have never been successful at doing this myself. Either it takes days to dry or doesn't really get clean. We're lucky to have a friend who is good at it and charges us a minimal fee -- since we return favors in other ways, too. Now's the time also to address those bookshelves which are little used except as a catch-all in front of and between the books. The tops of hutches and bookshelves and the fridge are also candidates for Spring cleaning.
We hope that organizing with forethought will make your housecleaning cycles easier and your circadian cycles serendipitous -- circadian, pertaining to rhythmic biological cycles recurring at approximately 24-hour intervals. If you need help to catch up with neglected tasks or prefer to let us do the routine maintenance, please visit cleannhandy.com or call 206-579-0005.
