Your Spring Cleaning Tips and Hacks

Dust can accumulate throughout the year without us even realizing it. Be careful when you start to look around the room for dust, because you might be shocked. Dust build up contributes to poor air quality which can lead to potential health risks or, at minimum, a bad night’s sleep. 

However, if you’ve been following this guide, then your bedroom shouldn’t have too much dust since we tackled a whole-home wipe down during Week 1. 

The Fan 

Have you ever looked at the dust build up on the blades of your fan? The blades capture dust and other air pollutants as they circulate the air throughout the room. Once the fan finally stops, it’s evident how much dust exists in the room without you seeing it. 

Take a clean rag and wipe down the fan blade after you turn it off and it’s completely stopped. Ensure you carefully wipe all sides, especially the edges, of the blades to get all the dust off. Don’t forget about wiping the base of the fan too, since it will capture dust from the circulating air.   

Spring Cleaning Hack: Fight back your instinct to impulsively wipe down the blades when you see the dust build up and lay down a blanket or towel on the ground under the fan. This will catch the runaway dust that may not get grabbed by the rag you use to wipe down the blade, especially if your fan is above your bed. 

Furniture 

Your fan may capture dust on the blades, but they also push the dust around the room onto your furniture. It’s more obvious on nightstands, since you likely interact with them on a daily basis, but for other types of furniture like dressers, you may not notice how much dust accumulates. 

Darker colored furniture will show dust build up before it gets too bad, but lighter colors are great at concealing the depth of the dust. 

Spring Cleaning Hack: Wipe down all faces of the furniture, because even vertical surfaces will hang onto dust! 

Linens

Yes, you should regularly clean your sheets, however, spring cleaning is the time to deeply clean all of your linen sets. This is especially true for those sets that have been hiding in the closet or drawer all year. 

Even if they haven’t been used, it’s still a good time to pull them out and clean them, because they collect dust sitting in the closet throughout the year.  

Spring Cleaning Hack: If you have linens that haven’t been used in over a year, this is a good opportunity to decide if you want to keep them or donate them.   

Deep Clean the Mattress

Have you ever cleaned your mattress? Mattresses are often a forgotten component of cleaning a room, yet we use them every night. Choosing the right mattress is important, but cleaning and maintaining the mattress is just as critical for a clean room and good night sleep. 

The best time to clean the mattress is after you’ve started cleaning your linens. After the mattress is stripped of all the sheets, start by vacuuming the mattress. Using an attachment tool will help you get inside all the nooks and crannies among the seams where dirt, dust, skin cells, and lint hides. 

After vacuuming inspect the mattress for any stains which can be cleaned up with a home solution made of mild detergent diluted with water. It’s best to lightly spot treat stains and always be sure to blot the treated areas dry. 

Once you’ve vacuumed and finished spot treating, sprinkle a light layer of baking soda over the mattress to absorb the odors. This process can take a few hours, so consider cleaning the mattress first, so you can continue cleaning the rest of the room while the baking soda sits and then finish by vacuuming the mattress once more.

Spring Cleaning Hack: Purchase a mattress protector to put under your bed sheets for an additional layer of protection. 

Decluttering

The main part of the spring cleaning isn’t just wiping down surfaces and vacuuming. It’s also about going through all of your belongings and getting rid of what you don’t need anymore. Clutter can be a silent driver to daily stress because it can cause us to lose track of things and generally feel uncertain when we live among disorganization. It’s so easy to end up drowning in stuff that we don’t need, when we don’t take time each year to go through everything.   

Nightstands 

The nightstand is our best friend overnight, but then quickly we forget about it for the rest of the day. It’s easy for our nightstands to accumulate random items we set down momentarily to never remember. Cups, bottles, and other items we like to keep nearby for the night can quickly pile up and create clutter. 

Initially, when you first dusted the room, you should have removed any clutter or trash on the nightstand. If your nightstand doesn’t have any drawers or cabinets then your nightstand spring cleaning is over. However, if you do have drawers and cabinets then now is the time that you should be going through them. 

Keep a trash bag nearby and an empty moving box as you start to remove all the contents. Decide what you want to keep in the nightstand, what you may want to donate, store, or just throw away. 

If you haven’t used something in over a year then there’s a good chance you won’t need it again so it might be best to throw it away. 

Spring Cleaning Hack: A storage unit is ideal for those items that are taking up space for daily use items, but you don’t want to throw them away. Storage units help preserve these precious belongings, while saving space and creating a more clutter-free home. 

Dressers

We all love our clothes which can make it difficult to determine when to part ways. Much like the nightstand, start pulling all of your clothing out of your dresser and determine if you want to keep something, donate, or throw it away. 

You might be surprised at how much clothing you have that doesn’t fit anymore, is worn out, or you just never wear at all. There might be some items you don’t even remember getting! 

Spring Cleaning Hack: It can be a good idea to go through your dresser before dusting because you can use old clothes that are getting thrown away as extra dusting rags.

Under the Bed

Storing items under the bed is a potential sign you don’t have enough storage space around the home. We often put items under the bed that we want to keep close to, but out of the way of daily life and storage space. If you have any items under the bed, it’s best to pull them out and clean them off as they will likely have a lot of build up on them, especially for those who have pets that frequently hang out under beds. 

Storage units might be a better place to store these items since they can preserve the integrity of the item. Or if you want to keep these specific items at home, moving other items stored around the house into a storage unit will clear up more space for the items under the bed! 

Closet Cleanout

Half of Americans have so much clutter they can’t use a room, which means we don’t have a space problem, we have a stuff problem. Bedroom closets can be filled with hidden gems we forgot about after storing them and unless you use every inch of your closet for daily purposes, there’s a good chance your closet needs a clean out. 

Once more, grab a trash bag and an empty box and start pulling out all of the contents stuffed in the closet one-by-one. This process can take a while because you might find yourself reminiscing all of those items you haven’t seen in potentially years. After you get done enjoying the memories, decide what value these items still have to you and if you’re going to get rid of them, store them for later, or keep them in the closet. 

If you find yourself wanting to keep items, but hesitant to put them back in the closet, because of the space they take up then a 5×5 storage unit might be a good alternative. 5×5 storage units are like having an extra closet for all of your belongings that you want to safeguard, but would rather make better use of the space in your home. 

After you finish your closet cleanout, don’t forget to vacuum the baking soda on the mattress and just like that you’ve finished your fourth week of spring cleaning. If your home has multiple bedrooms, this week might take a while to complete, but consider the bulk of the home to be officially spring cleaned! 

Week 5 of our spring cleaning spree starts with tackling the home office to provide a more productive work environment for everyone.