5 Effective Back-To-School Cleaning Tips For Your Home
August 31, 2015 | DIY & Home Improvement  |  Fun Tips | No comments
This time last year we provided you with a two-part blog which looked at deep cleaning your kitchen and your floors following the school holidays. Now we’re another year older and another year wiser – and following the partial washout of the summer – we appreciate there are various other areas of your home which could do with a back-to-school clean.
As such, below you’ll find 8 effective tips to help you bring a sparkle back to your home, and each tip is designed to be quick, simple and cost-effective.
Clean In Chunks:
Your children may have had 6 weeks to turn your home into a mess, and as you stand there surveying the damage after doing the morning school run you may be left scratching your head where to start.
Our advice is to put the kettle on have a quick cup of tea and compile a plan of action. Key to both your plan of action and tackling the mess left following the school holidays is to separate your home into sections and then to tackle chunks at a time.
By cleaning in chunks you should not only be able to combat the boredom and stress which comes with cleaning, but you’ll also be able to provide your home with a deeper clean.
To help with the cleaning in chunks, it is also advisable to set yourself a target and to stick to it. For example, give yourself a particular room to clean before you have your next cuppa or clean a certain area by a set time, before having a short break.
You’ll be amazed at how quickly and thoroughly you can clean your home if you split it into chunks.
The Small Things Matter:
Cleaning your floors – as per the advice we’ve previously outlined in “How to Clean Your Floor” – along with polishing are obvious parts of cleaning your home following the school holidays. But it’s the small areas which can make a big difference.
As such, as part of your plan to tackle the mess your little monsters created during the summer holidays we recommend you include the bed linen, towels, cushion covers and curtains – even your lampshades and light switch covers can do with a clean from time to time.
Cleaning these smaller areas will help your home appear cleaner instantly – it’ll also go some way to helping your home seem brighter come the winter (which is unfortunately fast approaching).
Don’t Forget The Laundry:
Whilst we’re talking about the smaller areas of your home, don’t forget to do the laundry.
None of us want to see our laundry bins overflowing, but there’s a good chance following the family holiday mixed with the 6 week school holidays, your laundry bin is close to bursting. Thankfully tackling the laundry is a quick and easy job.
Our tip for getting through it as quickly as possible without compromising the wash of your clothes is to do it as you clean the rest of your home. Put a load on before tackling the lounge, by time you’ve finished the wash cycle will be finished and your clothes ready to hang on the line. Keep doing this as you clean and your laundry bin will be virtually empty by time you’ve cleaned your home.
We also recommend you give your washing machine a thorough clean, by following the advice outlined in “You Don’t Need to Fear a Dirty Washing Machine”.
Remove Scratches from Your Wooden Floors:
Whilst we focused heavily on providing your floors with deep clean in “Deep Clean Your House, Now The Kids are Back at School: Part 2: Flooring”, since then we have came across the following tip from TV cleaning expert, Aggie MacKenzie – and we believe it’s relevant for the big clean following the school holidays.
If you’ve got wooden floors you will know how easily they can become scratched and scuffed, making them look unsightly. These scratches and scuffs however don’t need to be hidden by the moving of furniture or placement of rugs, instead you can repair them with a pot of strong tea.
Simply allow the pot of strong tea to cool slightly, before using a damp kitchen cloth to apply it to the damaged areas of your wooden floors, and watch the scuffs and scratches disappear.
Cleaning Doesn’t Need Chemicals:
When it comes to cleaning your home, you don’t need to be armed with a multitude of specialist cleaning products (although these do have their place too and can certainly help). Surprisingly you can use an array of products you already have in your home.
We’ve previously touched upon the various food items which can be used to help you clean various areas of your home, in our post “15 Tips to Help You Save Money on Cleaning Products” – but there are other household appliances you should utilise in your cleaning too, including:
- Babywipes – these are a powerful tool in any cleaning arsenal as they can provide a quick and instant clean on most surfaces. If you need to clean your bathroom in a hurry, run a couple babywipes over surfaces and see the sparkle return.They can also be used to give you seatbelts a quick once over to remove any sticky fingerprints and food spills following days out during the summer.
- Lint Rollers – if you’ve ever tried to clean up glitter following arts and crafts with your little ones, you’ll know how hard it can be. Even your trusty vacuum cleaner seems to struggle against the shimmering flecks of glitter – but there is a solution, a lint roller.Simply brush the lint roller over the glitter and see it lifted up and removed with ease. Lint rollers can also be used to clean up pet hair from bedding and furniture.
Whilst your home may appear a mess to you now, by taking these 5 tips into consideration there is no reason why you cannot quickly return it to its pre-school holiday glory, enabling you to relax and unwind before having to do the school run again.
Tags: Back to School, Cleaning Tips, Home Improvements