Spring is here! We love the sun, the sounds of the birds chirping and seeing flower gardens start to bud and bloom. We also love spring cleaning! We know it's not everyone's favourite activity, but there are so many little things that you can do to help make your home clean and fresh.
Spring Cleaning Tips
Here are some simple and inexpensive ideas to help you freshen up your home this spring:
- Crack a Window: Seems pretty obvious, but bringing in some fresh air really helps your home rejuvenate. You can also use a cold air mister and add some citronella scent to it for an added feel of freshness.
- Clean Your Window sils & Interior Glass Panes: Dust and dirt can build up over time on your window sils, so wiping them down will instantly brighten them up. Plus, now that the sun is out, let it all shine in and brighten up your home. This task is kid-friendly, just saying!
- Clean Your Baseboards: This is a thankless task that doesn’t get done often, or at all. They end up looking really shabby with scuffs and dirt. If you have white baseboards, a Magic Eraser will clean them up so nice that they will look like they’ve been freshly painted. Simply wet it and wipe along your baseboards. If your baseboards are wood, just use a damp cloth to prevent damage. This is also a great project for the kids to tackle - hint hint!
- Get Rid of Pet Hair: We have a great trick for this to share that's a lot cheaper than the sticky rollers and is reusable too! Grab a single rubber dish glove, get it slightly wet and rub your hand on any furniture covered in pet hair. This trick also works well on clothes.
- Clean Your Drains: You probably use Drano whenever your drain slows down, but there are a lot of chemical free options. The most economical is to fill up the sink with water and use a mini-plunger (not one that you’ve used in a toilet…just thought we'd make that clear). There are also long plastic pieces called Zip-It drain cleaners that you stick down the sink. When you pull them back up, years of 'material' come back. Caution: this task may not be suitable for the faint of heart. You may want to challenge your spouse, partner, or roommate wiith Rock-Paper-Scissors, best 2 out of 3, to get out of this one.
- Clean Your Stove: You'd be surprised how quickly food crumbs, sticky residue, and pet hair (if you have furry friends at home) can accumulate under, behind and down the sides of your stove. For the best cleaning, pull out your stove to expose all 4 sides and the floor which will give you access to all areas that need a good cleaning. Also, make sure you clean the oven and remove those burned bits that often leave that "something's burning" smell inside your home. Laying tinfoil along the botton under the oven element will help catch spills and fallen food items and allow for quick and easy clean up.
- Clean out Your Fridge: This task has so many benefits, is a good activity to do with your family, and can save you money. When cleaning out your fridge, it's best to pull out food items so you can expose the shelves and drawers so these can be thoroughly cleaned. While your food items are out, check it over and wipe away sticky residue on the containers' exterior or lids. Also look for food spoilage, damage to containers (which can lead to spoilage) and look at expiration dates. You'll likely discover salad dressing that expired in 2015. By re-packaging foods and tossing away expired and spoiled food, you can help prevent your family from possible sickness. We mentioned you can save money by cleaning your fridge, right? We have not forgotten! Now that your fridge is clean, you can better organize the contents and prevent food from spoiling and going to waste before you've consumed it. Too often food items spoil because they are not packaged correctly, are hidden and forgotten about, or are squished in places to make them fit. Clearning your fridge will help prevent this from happening.
- Clean your Dishwasher's Interior: Your dishwasher can sometimes be used as another drain which isn’t good for it. An simple and easy cleaning method is to run one cycle with one cup of vinegar in a dishwasher safe bowl on the top rack. Next run another cycle with some baking soda sprinkled in the bottom of the dishwasher.
Before you do a spring clean or while your spring cleaning, you'll probably want to organize all of your “stuff”. We have tons of amazing advice on this in our blog, but really, the key is to look for items that are big and bulky and that make sense to move to self storage. Some ideas would be your snowblower and shovels, your winter tires, winter sports equipment, kids’ toys and winter jackets.
Get Organized with Self-Storage!
If you need help getting organized this spring, Storage Solutions can help with our touch-free rentals! We offer affordable, month-to-month indoor and outdoor storage unit rentals so you can rent extra space for as little or long as you need to get your home organized. Give us a call, text or email to rent or reserve from either our Milton self-storage facility our Woodstock self-storage facility.
Happy cleaning, and BTW...we make renting self storage super easy and fun, so like or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for tips, tricks and a good laugh.
Your friend in self storage,
Storage Solutions