Your Apartment Spring Cleaning Guide

Spring is the perfect time to breathe new life into your apartment with a thorough cleaning.  Not only can you scour away a year’s worth of grime, you can also sort through and purge the piles of clutter that have accumulated in your home over the long winter.  Despite this, with so much mess and so little time, spring-cleaning can often feel a little overwhelming.  With a little pre-planning and a lot of elbow grease you can tackle your spring-cleaning with ease.

Plan and Purge

The first step to an effective spring-cleaning is planning.  Before you pick up a sponge, consider how much time you have to commit to the job, determine which cleaning goals you want to accomplish, and make a to-do list.  A detailed list keeps you on task, and reminds you that there is an end in sight.  After mapping out a plan, your next step is to “pre-clean” your apartment by de-cluttering it.  Go through your closets, cupboards, work area, and correspondence pile, and get rid of anything and everything that is no longer in use.  A good rule of thumb is to consider whether or not you have used an item in the past year: if the answer is no, send it on its way.  If you have pack-rat tendencies, start a good will donation bag and a bag for shredding documents.  This speeds up the decision making process by breaking it down.

Get Down and Dirty

Once you have de-cluttered, the actual cleaning is far less daunting, because nothing stands between you and the filth.  At a minimum, you will want to be sure that you give all of your tables, shelves, and counter-tops a good dusting and wiping down, and that you give your carpets and floors a thorough vacuuming and mopping. However, a spring-cleaning demands a few extra steps to ensure that your apartment really sparkles.  First, wipe down and polish all of your windows and mirrors.  Cleaning your glass is relatively quick and painless, and goes a long way towards brightening up your space.  Next, remove and wash your couch and your cushion covers, and, if applicable, your curtains.  This might seem like a cumbersome task, but the result of feeling like you just reupholstered your furniture makes it all worthwhile.  Then, wipe down your cupboard doors, baseboards, kitchen backsplash, and your garbage and recycling bins.  Again, this is a relatively quick and easy task, and it does wonders to restore crispness and brightness to your living space.  Finally, wipe down all of your kitchen appliances—from your fridge and oven door, to your toaster and tea-kettle.

To complete your spring-clean, pick up a nice new plant, light some incense, open up the windows, and breathe in the freshness!