Spring Cleaning Tips...

I have a confession...

I keep my house relatively clean.  Well I should rephrase this.  I am good at making my house appear clean.  Basically anything that an outsider can see from my front door is clean.  But my secret is this...

I am not a deep cleaner.  If you were to look at my baseboards, fans, blinds, top and behind the fridge,  etc up close, you would see nastiness.  I guess this might stem from the fact that in the past 9 years since I have been married, my husband and I have lived in 5 different locations.  In each of those places I knew I wasn't going to live there longer than a few years.  So being lazy I just never deep cleaned.  Of course once I moved from some of those locations it got a deep cleaning. 

But in October of last year we finally bought our first house.  And this time I knew that we wouldn't be living here for a few years.  We built this house with the idea that we could live in it for the rest of our lives.  So this meant that I would have to actually deep clean it. 

Before we moved in I spent countless hours cleaning the house.  In fact on 2 different occasions I went to the house at 8pm and cleaned until 5am.  But unfortunately a few short months later and our sparkly, clean home is showing signs of being lived in:)

Tonight after cleaning up dinner I became disgusted with the baseboards that had a layer of dust on them.  The walls where my 18 month old sits had dried on food, and the fridge had a layer of dust on the top.  And out of nowhere I got that cleaning bug.  And I know that when I get the cleaning bug I need to act on it because it doesn't last forever. 

Now I realized the whole house needed a good cleaning, but I knew I wouldn't be able to do it all at once.  So I toyed around with a few ideas on how I could get my house deep cleaned in as short amount of time as possible. 

A few ideas came to mind.  First I could pick a chore, such as baseboards/blinds/cabinets, and clean them through out the house and pick one or two of those chores a day.  Or I could pick a room a week and clean that room from top to bottom.  I decided that the later would be the best option for me. 

So I am starting at one end of my house and working towards the other end.  Since some rooms are smaller than others I may do 2 rooms on some weeks.  But my goal is to have my whole house deep cleaned within a month time period. 

Along my journey I will be giving tips for the different rooms I will be cleaning.  First room on my agenda is the kitchen.  Here is my list of things to clean/do. 

---sweep and mop floors

---wipe inside, outside and tops of cabinets

---organize insides of cabinets

---clean inside and outside of all appliances

---pull fridge and oven out and clean behind them.

---wipe walls down

---clean and organize pantry

---clean and wipe down countertops and sink

---clean and wipe down baseboards

And of course before I begin this task I consulted Pinterest for any tips.  Here are a few personal favorites of mine. 

Courtesy of Apartment Therapy found here

Cleaning baseboards with dryer sheets...Genius...And I have tried this out and it works amazingly.  The dust just clings to the dryer sheet...Guess who just found a new chore for my boys to do?

Courtesy of Behind the Studio found here

Cleaning your stove top with soapy water and baking soda...Great way to get off that burned on water (tell me I am not the only one who has water overboil frequently)

Courtesy of Real Simple found here

Using baby oil to polish your faucets...Since my kitchen sink and faucet aren't too old, they aren't very dirty.  In fact my sink is my OCD thing.  It has to be wiped down every time it is used.  But I still put a very tiny amount of baby oil on a rag and wiped it in the sink and faucet.  While it didn't change the overall look it did make my sink smell delicious...I love the smell of baby oil...

Courtesy of Real Simple found here

Clean the inside of your dishwasher with lemonade kool-aid.  Again since my dishwasher is only a few months old it isn't really dirty.  I did do a packet of kool aid in my washer but didn't notice a difference.  I would be interested to see if this really cleans a dirty dishwasher.  If any of you have done this let me know. 

Courtesy of The Nest found here

Clean out your microwave by zapping 2 cups water and 1 teaspoon vanilla.  Wipe down after zapping and not only do you have a clean microwave but a good smelling one.

I am hoping that I can keep this cleaning bug and do a nice, deep cleaning for at least one room (after the initial cleaning) every month.  Think about it...deep cleaning one room or even 2 rooms a month will keep your house clean year round.  And really there is nothing like having a clean house.  The saying is so true, "A CLEAN HOUSE IS A HAPPY HOUSE"