Spring is almost upon us and, for many, that means the annual thorough clean is upon us. If, like me, you still have boxes lurking around the house from Christmas time that you wanted to ‘keep hold of’ in case you needed them – but what do you need more, boxes or space?
It’s a trap that many of us fall into and it’s a shame because it means that the stuff that we do actually want to show off is hidden. For example, if we were gifted a beautiful set of LSA candle holders or vases to use as centrepieces on the dining table, all of the clutter prohibits us from doing so.
Readying for the Big Clean
This year’s spring clean will be made a whole lot easier with some amount of organisation. You can split your items into three categories – what you want to keep, store away and throw away. If you mark off which items go into which category before you tackle the mess, you will find that the spring clean will be easier than it has been in years gone by.
If you have the need for it, hire a skip for the day or weekend. If you know roughly how much stuff you will be throwing away, you should have a good idea as to the size of skip you require. Depending on the size, skip hire can be expensive, so try and keep this down to a minimum – just be wary of neighbours taking advantage of a skip sitting in the street!
Get the Kids out of your Hair
If you have children in your household, you will understand only too well just how much more difficult they can make the process of cleaning. In an ideal world, you would love them to get stuck in and help out, but in reality we know that probably isn’t going to be the case.
Organise an activity for the children or day out with friends and/or other family members so as you have the house to yourself. Play dates, sleepovers and visits to their grandparents all make for good distractions while you get on and get the house back in order.
One Room at a Time
Do not make the fatal mistake of trying to clean up the entire house in one fell swoop because it will only seem like an endless, and thankless, task. Take it one room at a time and spread the spring clean over one or two days – while you want to get everything done as soon as possible, rushing won’t get you anywhere.
Tackle the upstairs rooms first as, this way, you can free up more storage space for any items that you want to keep but put in a safe place. If you have the luxury of a spare room, this is the perfect spot for storage space. With that being said, however, that doesn’t mean turning the room into a tip and keeping the door closed.
Create a New System
After the spring clean is over for another year, and you have finished telling yourself off for allowing the home to get so bad (we are all guilty of this), create a new system to stop clutter building up as much.
This could mean labelling items such as folders with important documents, electricals, items that belong upstairs or downstairs and who the owner is. If everything has a place, and it is put back in its correct spot, this should help to limit the amount of mess that is created.
However you choose to tackle this year’s spring clean, be smart about and you will be thankful that
