Spring Cleaning

Have any of you heard of the Enneagram?!? Well if you haven’t, I highly recommend looking into it and seeing if you can decipher which number you and your family members most resemble. (The Road Back to You is an interesting and entertaining book that describes the 9 groups.) It has helped explain so much about myself and those I love the most.  If you are familiar with the Enneagram and the number system it uses…. I am a HARD 1, also known as the Reformer or Perfectionist!! Let me tell you I have a physical, mental, and emotional reaction to clutter and mess.  (Just ask anyone that lives in my house!) This is a very hard trait to have when you have a family of 5 and none of them share your same perfectionistic tendencies! When I walk in my house after work and my kitchen is clean and things are in their place I can’t even tell you how much easier I breath and I just feel stress-free. But when I walk in and it looks like 35 grown adults live in my house and none of them are going to clean up the mess, I have literally lost my cool (and a few other things) on those 4 humans who just don’t seem to see any of it!

I was reading about Enneagram Type 1’s and it said that their home environment is an extension of the state of their life and psyche on the most visceral level. I have never read anything that spoke so completely and accurately to the way it makes me feel. Now if I had any other 1’s in my household that would have been helpful, but of course that is not the case. Even though I HATE cleaning, I LOVE and THRIVE on having a clean, organized home.  Sooooo I guess that means I have to do what I hate in order to have what I love.

As always, I’ve got some tips to help with the process of Spring Cleaning and your budget! Use this handy list of creative cleaning hacks to banish those dust bunnies without spending a fortune on organizers and cleaning solutions.

Schedule smart

Create a physical list of every part of your home you plan on attacking. Next, divide the chores according to the amount of time you estimate it will take to clean them. Make smaller sub-lists of 3-hour jobs, 1-hour jobs and 15-minute jobs. Post your lists in a place you’ll often see. This way, when you have spare time, you can find the right big or small job to tackle at a glance.

DIY cleansers

Use a lemon for cleaning stainless steel sinks and faucets. Slice a lemon in half, and rub the fruit against hard water stains and rust spots in your kitchen and bathroom. You can also sprinkle on some baking soda for the really stubborn marks. The stains should now easily lift.

Steam-clean your microwave. Fill a microwave-safe bowl with 1-2 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of white vinegar, plus a few drops of your favorite essential oil. Nuke it for five minutes and then wipe those stains right off!

Use coffee filters for your monitors and screens. Let the gentle fibers in coffee filters leave your screens squeaky-clean!

Clean your shower heads with white vinegar. Fill a sandwich bag with white vinegar and use a rubber band to secure it around your shower head. Let it soak overnight and the water stains or calcium buildup should wash right off.

Tips and tricks

Use a lint roller to dust. Run a lint roller over your light fixtures and shelves. It’ll pick up those dust particles and leave you with clean surfaces in minutes!

Use your dishwasher for more than dishes. Load up your dishwasher with plastic toys, hair brushes, pet dishes, refrigerator shelves, tweezers and drawer knobs. When the cycle is through, clean your dishwasher by placing a cup of white vinegar on the top shelf and running it through its hottest cycle.

Use a window squeegee to scrape pet hair off your carpet. The rubber edge of the squeegee is perfect for gripping and removing pet hair from your rugs and carpet.

Use a hair dryer to get rid of water rings. Blast a hair dryer over the water rings until they disappear. You can also rub some olive oil over the area to return the wood to its original shine.

Let’s get organized!

Create a space for clutter. Create a place for every bit of clutter that passes through your door. You can pick up organizers and storage bins at the dollar store.

Use Velcro to keep drawer organizers in place. Fasten strips of Velcro to the bottom of your organizers to keep them in place.