GET AN EARLY START ON SPRING CLEANING

It might be too early to do many outside spring cleaning tasks, but you can get an early start on spring cleaning indoors! The days are finally beginning to get longer and that means all those dust bunnies you’ve conveniently ignored all winter long have got to go. Grab your cleaning gear and lets get down to work.

GET AN EARLY START ON SPRING CLEANING

Donate – We all collect too much stuff. If you’re like most Americans you have a basement, garage or spare room filled with stuff you don’t use, don’t need, don’t want and probably don’t know how to get rid of it. Now is the time to go through all of that stuff you’ve collected over the years and decide if it’s something you need to keep. A good rule of thumb is if you haven’t used it in the last year you probably don’t need it. Go through the garage, basement, spare room and determine what you want to keep and what can be donated so someone else can enjoy and use the item.

Consign – If you have items that you’d like to sell rather than donate you can take them to a consignment shop (or then can come pick the larger items up). Dining room tables and chairs, dressers, china cabinets and other items can all be consigned. With consignment you are letting the merchant sell your items. He or she places them in the store until they sell at which point he or she gets a cut of the sale. This is a great way to sell higher priced items like those mentioned because they can be viewed on display in a store rather than simply a picture on Craig’s List. You don’t have to deal with any of the hassle of moving, negotiating price or any of that. Easy peasy!

Throw Away – It would be nice if everything we owned could be enjoyed by someone else, but that isn’t the case. Some items like ratty furniture, worn out and broken children’s toys and broken items just need to be put in the trash. If you can repair it, go for it. If the item can’t be repaired, donated or consigned then it’s time to consider throwing it away. Luckily there are many services that will actually come and haul away your junk. All you have to do is determine what is junk and direct the haulers to it. There’s a small cost associated with this service, but again you won’t have to deal with any of the hassles. You don’t even have to move the items onto the truck- they do that for you.

Clean Under – Now that you’ve cleared out a bunch of stuff that was just taking up room, it’s time to get underneath the stuff that remains. Get at those cobwebs, dust bunnies and lost chew toys with a broom, vacuum extension or just move the piece of furniture and really clean. Items like the refrigerator and living room couch are going to be the biggest offenders followed by children’s beds and your own if you like to store things underneath it. Don’t forget to vacuum the coils on the fridge while you have it pulled out.

Once you’ve cleared out the clutter and gotten rid of the dust and debris that collects underneath things, the rest of spring cleaning is really just keeping up with your cleaning schedule. Sure, you’ve got windows to clean and probably some tasks that only need doing once or twice a year, but those big things can feel empowering and are a great motivator to tackling the rest of your spring cleaning chores.