Spring Cleaning – Living Areas

Have you started your Spring Cleaning yet?

Depending on how many living spaces you have, you may do them all at once or just a few at a time. For example, if you have a formal living room, a family room and a TV room you might want to clean those apart from the dining room.

For example, I generally try to clean my living and dining room and toss in a hallway and stairway because these rooms are not filled with loads of “stuff” and I can finish them with minimal effort and get a great feeling of accomplishment. I leave the basement even though it houses a “living space” for another session.

Here’s how I execute my top-down and outside to inside strategy for cleaning living spaces.

Starting with my broom, I look up and knock down any cobwebs in the corners or on the crown molding. Next, I use my Vapamore vacuum cleaner with the adjustable wand and dusting brush to vacuum down the crown molding.

For the walls, I switch to the smooth floor brush on the fully extended wand and vacuum from the top down. If you have washable curtains or slipcovers, they should already be in the wash. Wash these in cold water with a little De-Mite laundry additive to take care of the allergens that collect there.

If you don’t have a canister vacuum cleaner, use the Swiffer™ style dry cleaning cloths for the walls. The floor Swiffer with dry cloths will work wonders on cleaning walls. You’ll be surprised by the amount of dust that comes off!

Now it’s time to clean and dust any ceiling fan or light fixtures on the ceiling. I vacuum my ceiling fans with my vacuum and the dust brush. If the light fixture has a removable shade or glass dome, I remove it and take it to the kitchen sink for a good washing.

Most lights are pretty easy to disassemble. If they have a glass dome, it’s generally held in place by a screw and washer in the center. Many of the globes on many chandelier styles are easily removed by first removing the bulbs. Of course, make sure you turn off the light before you start taking it apart for cleaning.

By the time you are finished cleaning the rest of the room, your light covers will be dry and ready to reinstall.

Next, I tackle the woodwork. If you have crown molding, start there then work down to any chair rail and lastly baseboards. Now, give all the furniture a good dusting and if knickknacks are washable, take them to the kitchen sink and give them a good washing.

Remove everything from every shelf and then clean the shelf. If the objects on the shelves can’t be washed in the kitchen sink, dust with a damp cloth.

Now take on the upholstered furniture. You want to remove any cushions and vacuum them thoroughly. Now vacuum under the furniture. This is a great time to treat your upholstered furniture with a denaturing agent like ADMS Dust Mite Spray. After you vacuum the cushions and give them a flip, just spray lightly.

Finally, clean the floors. I used my Vapamore steam cleaner to clean my tile floors. It does such a fantastic job of cleaning and brings out the natural shine in the tile. My Primo model is also safe for my sealed wood floors. I steam clean my wood floors several times yearly.

But when it comes to Spring cleaning, I like Murphy's Oil Soap for wood. You can get it as a concentrate and mix it in water or you can get it in handy wipes. Either way, nothing does a better job than getting on your hands and knees and wiping those floors down. The wipes are great for cleaning wood stairs as well.

If you have carpet, vacuum thoroughly, including the little cracks by the baseboard and then treat with X-Mite Powder or ADMS Dust Mite Spray. If you use the X-Mite Carpet Powder, be sure to sweep it thoroughly into the carpet and then go on to cleaning the next room.

X-Mite needs to sit on the carpet for 3 hours to work properly. If you are using the ADMS Spray, just lightly spray after you vacuum and call the room done.

I mentioned earlier, I don’t do the windows until I am ready to do all the windows. However, if the room has a glass door, I do clean the glass on the door.