Spring Cleaning -- Clearing Out and Cleaning Up

Guest Author - Kathryn Weber

America’s houses are bursting at the seams. This year when you dive into spring cleaning, focus more on lightening your home’s load by getting rid of as much stuff as possible. In one of my previous articles, Clutter Gets in the Way of Cleaning, I talked about how straightening is the single largest amount of time spent cleaning.

This spring, make it a point to get rid of more stuff so you don’t spend so much time putting things away. Once you have pared down to just the essentials, then you can really get in there and clean. What should go into the trash or donation bin? Here’s a quick list:

Broken items

Items that are outgrown or no longer fit

Items that are no longer used or not used in a long, long time

Anything past expiration (food, medicines, paints, chemicals, make-up)

Items you no longer need, want, or use (and face it, that’s a lot of stuff)

Books, papers, and magazines

Clear out obsolete collections, bookshelves, and attic and basements

Anything you’ve kept out of guilt

Anything you have doubles or triples of

Once you have cleared out most of the superfluous stuff, it’s time to do your spring cleaning. This typically consists of cleaning what you don’t normally clean. This includes:

Porches, sidewalks, and driveways

Siding on the house

Gutters

Windows

Cabinets, closets, and drawers

Oven, freezer, and refrigerator

Behind appliances and under furniture

Chimney

Desks, home office, filing cabinet

Artificial plants and flowers

Pillows, comforters, blinds, and/or drapes

Steam clean carpets and upholstery

Makeup drawers, bathroom cabinets, medicine cabinets

The junk drawer

There you have it: a checklist to help you clear out this spring and another list of what to clean once you've gotten rid of clutter. Why just clean around all the stuff that you don't need any longer? Get rid of it -- and then you'll find that when you DO clean, you'll be much more effective because all that junk is now out of the way.

END THE POWER STRUGGLE WITH YOUR HOUSE!

A lot of the struggle of keeping a clean house is knowing what to clean. Stay on track all year long with the Everydayclean Calender. This is a 12-month at a glance checklist that helps you keep on top of your house instead of your house being on top of you.

Its 31 pages of checklists help you to remember everything from when to change air conditioning filters to cleaning out your cutlery drawer to scheduling carpet cleaning. Virtually everything that needs to be cleaned, is on this calender in a year-round cleaning schedule that keeps your house clean in an orderly fashion.

Click Here for More Information

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Kathryn Weber is the publisher of the Everydayclean.com Calender -- the calendar that helps you end the power struggle with your house. Keeping a clean home is about knowing what to clean when. Virtually everything that needs to be cleaned is on this calendar in a year-round cleaning schedule that helps you keep your house clean easier and faster. Click here for more information.