During this time of year, when the days start to become both longer and warmer, a lot of people give their house a thorough cleaning, preparing it for those hot summer months. Of course, you can clean your house weekly, but this time of year gives us the chance to do extra cleaning. Walls, window coverings, ceilings and the attic are just a few of the things that we tackle. Most of us also put away our heavier winter clothes and linens, swapping them out for lighter, airier choices. Junk usually accumulates as well as we extend projects to our yards also, weeding, raking and pruning. Indoors and outdoors, our houses get spruced up for the summer months.
Cleaning doesn’t have to be overwhelming, however, when you think about everything that you want to do. It also doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Here are a few eco-friendly tips to stay within your budget throughout your deep clean in the summer months.
Plan
If you want to clean your whole house by a certain date, take a few minutes to plan it out. What exactly do you want to get done? How much time daily do you have to spend on it? Will the whole family be helping you? What is your budget for cleaning supplies, and can you find eco-friendly junk removal services? By answering these few questions before you start, you can save yourself the headache of diving into the cleaning without really knowing how much you’ll spend, when you’ll finish or how you’ll dispose of your items in an eco-friendly manner.
Clean in Sections
Once you’ve planned your cleaning out, take it room by room. This can help make the task seem more manageable, helping you to avoid a panic attack at the thought of cleaning the whole house top to bottom. By tackling one room at a time, you can also better see the progress you’ve made. If you’re sticking to a budget, you might consider scheduling out your cleaning so you can afford to pay for the big cleaning items like eco-friendly cleaners, extended reach dusters, and even paint if your walls just won’t get the junk off of them. Each of these items can cost you a pretty penny.
Purge
More and more people are using deep clean sessions as a time to purge. We tend to hunker down in the winter and unwanted possessions can pile up. This is the perfect time of year as well to go through belongings, throwing out anything that is broken beyond repair or has outlived its usefulness. On a budget? Try selling these items for cold hard cash. Do you really need that old CD walkman from 2003? Sell it for $5 to some junior high school kid at a garage sale. You can also donate things to shelters, and use this opportunity to recycle your unwanted items. Waste not, want not.
Deep cleaning your house may take time, but it doesn’t have to be difficult, expensive, and stressful. By planning ahead, budgeting your spending, finding eco-friendly options, and recycling you’ll surely be on the right track to a clean house and a clean mind.
About the Author: Vern is a writer on a variety of topics including eco-friendly tips. He’s written blogs in the past about eco-friendly junk removal, cleaning with green products, and lessening your carbon footprint.
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Really good tips. House cleaning can be really overwhelming with the fast pace that we all keep these days. We try and do a purge of outgrown clothes and toys every spring to cut down on clutter.
excellent tips! it can definete;y be overwhelming to think about cleaning the entire house, so by doing one room at a time, it will be much less stressful!
Cleaning the entire house is a difficult thought to swallow. Its like baking a whole pie, and knowing you gotta eat it all yourself. It’s not as appetizing and knowing you only have to eat one piece. Same concept at cleaning only one room at a time. Seems a lot easier in your mind.
Cleaning is a tad overwhelming but never try to tackle it as a whole. Split the house into sections and complete one per week. Trust me – it makes it bearable. Plus with a full week to clean one section you can go at a relaxed pace!
I totally agree with your planning and purging. I hope people would donate as oppose to throw things away. There are people in the world who have lost everything to fires, floods or some type of disaster. They need all the help they can get! Maybe it’s just me but I can’t throw anything away unless there is absolutely no life left in it.
A couple of fun ideas I’ve done in the past is have a family cleaning party. (got a better response to it when my boys were a little younger). We’d blast the music, be silly and dance and ALL clean out the house together. Then celebrate our victory with a pizza party.
Another thing I’ve done in the past is spring cleaning swaps with my girlfriends. Very early spring (before our schedules are bombarded with activities), a few of us would get together taking a turn at each others houses and get down to some heavy duty cleaning business washing walls, windows, ceiling fans, blinds,cabinets inside & out, etc…, all of the things that don’t get done on a daily basis. Thinking about it now….we really need to start doing those again. They were actually kind of fun
Suzanne
http://www.suzannesnorwex.com/
Radically reducing the use of chemicals in personal care and cleaning.
Good way to organise the spring cleaning process. It is good to de-clutter your home and donate things you no longer need to charity.
best regards,
Simply awesome. I am also thinking about cleaning the entire house. I will definitely keep your points in my mind while doing cleaning.
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My wife and I do a winter deep clean of the entire house and spend an entire weekend cleaning. It makes living the rest of the winter in a clutter free house much more enjoyable. Plus its easier to clean during this time when you have three small children. Usually one of our parents takes the kids of the day while we clean.
Hi,really I’m totally agree with your spring cleaning process. I’ll also try to follow your tips and keep them in my mind.I was also searching such contents since a long time and at last I found them here. Keep it up in near future also.
fab tips! it can definately be overwhelming to think about cleaning the entire house, so by doing one room at a time, it will be much less stressful!
When making my own cleaners, I always add an essential oil to the mix. This counteracts the pungent nature of vinegar and adds a cozy feel to all the rooms that I use my homemade cleaners. Make sure you use food-grade (or perfume) essential oils, not the kind you would add to a diffuser. My personal favorite is lemongrass…lively, energetic, incredibly fresh. Also, if you add orange peels to a jar of vinegar and let it sit for a few weeks before using you will end up with two marvelous products: the orange peels then maintain the deodorizing properties of the vinegar with the bonus of citrus freshness…great for the garbage disposal. And the vinegar gets a bit of the citrus fragrance, although it will definitely still smell like vinegar.
A very useful article. When your house is really messy, this article is absolutely right, you need a plan otherwise you dont know where to start and it is overwhelming
Great blog, with a ton of good info that I hadn’t considered before…..Eco-friendly is definitely a powerful tool for the environment…thanks again!!!