How to Declutter & Clean Your Home for Spring

How to Declutter & Clean Your Home for Spring + Make New Cleaning Habits that Last | AD

Spring is here and, for me, with spring comes the urge to clean, declutter and freshen things up. As the days get longer and lighter, and the sun shines through the window, I want my home to feel lighter and clean too. Cue, the big spring clean! It’s time to make your home fresh and sparkly and get rid of any excess stuff that you and your family no longer need.

In this article, I will share some of my favourite decluttering hacks that help me keep on top of the clutter and some of my favourite cleaning products and gadgets too. Read on to find out more and hopefully get inspired to start spring cleaning and decluttering your own home.

For me, spring cleaning has two main tasks – doing a big declutter throughout the home and deep cleaning all the areas that are not part of the regular daily or weekly cleaning routines.

• Declutter Your Home for Spring

Decluttering goes hand in hand with cleaning and whenever I’m cleaning, I’m usually decluttering too and considering which items really need to stay. For a spring clean declutter, it’s time to be even more thorough and go through drawers, cupboards, and other storage places around the home. It doesn’t have to all be done on the same day, just make it a project to work your way through the rooms of your home to see what you can declutter.

Having some different boxes for items you want to sell, donate, and recycle is a good idea for keeping things organised as you go through your home’s stuff. Once you have finished, make sure you pack up the car and head to the charity shop and the tip – don’t let things you’ve decided to let go of sit around in your home any longer than necessary. Same thing goes for things that you want to sell – put some time aside and photograph and list all the items that you want to sell. Set a deadline too – if an item doesn’t sell within a time frame that you set (a couple of weeks or a month perhaps), reduce the price, and if it hasn’t sold in another so and so many days/weeks, donate the item instead.

For this task, I love using the Wham Studio Cube Baskets (sold in sets of 3, available in other colours) from Very that you can see in this article. They look great, stack together compactly when not in use and are a great size for regular decluttering tasks and for storing things too.

• Deep Clean Your Home for Spring

Now onto the deep cleaning! There are lots of cleaning jobs that I do on a daily or weekly basis such as vacuuming, dusting, wiping down surfaces, cleaning bathrooms and the kitchen but now it’s time to get to the other tasks!

Some of my spring-cleaning tasks include:

• Washing the windows
• Cleaning the top of the kitchen cupboards
• Lifting furniture out to vacuum and clean properly behind them
• Washing curtains, washable rugs, and other fabrics
• Dusting blinds
• Cleaning upholstery
• Cleaning the garden patio and preparing the garden furniture

Washing the windows always feels like a big job but I usually quite enjoy it once I’ve started! My method is to use warm water and washing up liquid in a bucket with plenty of microfibre cloths so that I can swap to a clean one often. I wash a segment of the window with the soapy water and a cloth first, then I get a dry and clean cloth and use a window cleaning spray (or vinegar solution) and wipe the window again. I get great results with this easy routine. On the inside of the window, just the window cleaning spray and a dry cloth is enough as our windows don’t really get dirty on the inside.

For my everyday vacuuming, I don’t usually use the attachments but when it’s spring cleaning time, it’s time to use all the extra tools on our Dyson Ball Animal vacuum cleaner from Very. They’re so handy for vacuuming the upholstery of our sofas and cleaning hard to reach places!

For giving your carpet a really good clean, carpet cleaners are the way to go! Until recently, I thought they were all really bulky machines that were best rented to avoid having to store them in the house but now we have the Vax SpotWash Home Duo Spot Cleaner from Very which is super compact. It fits on a shelf in one of our utility room cupboards and is easy to move around the home to clean up spills and stains on your carpet or on upholstery. You can also use it in the car. It comes with dedicated cleaning tools and a 250ml bottle of VAX Spot Washer Antibacterial Solution for a reassuring clean. It’s a great cleaning tool for busy families with children and/or pets.

• Create New Cleaning Habits that Last

Once you’ve spring cleaned your home, it’s time to think about what you can do to make it easier to keep on top of cleaning tasks in your home. What are the problem areas in your family’s home? Can you come up with new systems and create new cleaning habits that last?

For me, I’m currently working on our kitchen clean-up habits and our laundry system. I am struggling to get into a good routine with the kitchen and end up cleaning it at different times each days which means that it can be a mess for longer periods of time some days which usually bothers me as I like a clean kitchen! I am going to try harder to get into better kitchen cleaning habits and see if I can change this.

Clothes washing is a big job in most families. My two older daughters have been sorting, folding and putting away their own clean washing for a long time now which is a big help but I still struggle to keep up with the washing some weeks. I now have two new washing baskets from Very that are helping me already.

It’s the handy Beldray Set Of 2 Carry Handle 26l Plastic Laundry Baskets which stack together neatly to save space. Each basket can hold a full load of washing which is great! My new system is to sort and fold the washing as soon as it comes off the airer, using one basket for my older daughters and the other for the rest of the laundry. This way, the older girls can still put their washing away easily when I’m having a busy week.

We also have a new handy Brabantia 6-bar steel hanging drying rack from Very that is great to have when you need to create extra hanging space when the weather doesn’t allow you to dry washing outdoors. Our indoor airer fills up quickly so the extra hanging space of this fold up airer will be very useful. It can be hung on doors (or the upstairs balustrade) and provides 4.5 meters of drying space for up to 7.6kg of washing. It has smart lock adjustable arms for a perfect fit and it folds up flat for storing too.

Hopefully this article has given you some inspiration for spring cleaning your own home! Having the correct cleaning tools and creating decluttering and cleaning systems that work for your family and home are the most important things you need for a clean home.

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