Know anyone who adores spending free time on interior and exterior home maintenance? We didn’t think so either. Spring cleaning probably isn’t most people’s favorite activity, but few of us can get out of having to do it. The advent of spring is a traditional time to spiff up and refresh, so as flowers bloom and days lengthen, we at ICI Homes offer several easy strategies for reframing housecleaning into something that hopefully feels more satisfactory and less like drudgery.
Sometimes all it takes is a bit of a mind shift to tackle household messes inside and out. Here are our spring cleaning tips for those who don’t like cleaning.
First, face reality
Even if you’re enjoying your first spring in a new custom Florida home, daily living spaces can get out of order over time. This requires what some of our parents and grandparents may have called “deep cleaning.”
For example, your lanai, patio or back porch is coated in pollen. Nobody unpacked those last 10 moving boxes in the garage. The kids need to learn how to deep-clean a bathroom.
Accept that you may have to break out the vacuum cleaners, rubber gloves and pressure washers and get after it. The sooner you vanquish grime, the sooner you can try our next strategies.
Call it “de-cluttering”
Spring cleaning isn’t such a chore if it feels like jettisoning excess junk.
This might be more important than ever as we begin to emerge from a global health crisis. Months of hanging out at home likely prompted us to re-arrange and redecorate to accommodate online business meetings and school, or to gather all our comfy things around us and nest.
Now, where do all those decorating discards and no-longer-needed comfort items go? Into closets, drawers, cabinets and on shelves.
Time to purge! Create piles to keep, piles to toss and piles to give away to a good cause. Then, survey all the uncluttered space you’ve “cleaned up.” Feels better already, doesn’t it?
Call it “redecorating”
Especially if you didn’t binge-watch all the home-and-garden shows during quarantine and tried to replicate some of their transformations in your own home.
There’s nothing like painting a room (or two) — making an intentional mess — to inspire the spring cleaning of those spaces afterward. Or, taking the time to unearth art and family photographs that may be stashed out of sight and to create a personalized gallery wall.
Fresh paint, re-arranged furniture and re-imagined decorative accessories make cleaning your new showstopper space less of a chore than it would’ve been in its “before” state. And it doesn’t have to be a major project to get that spring-cleaning boost.
What if it’s time to replace linens, towels and curtains that moved with you from your previous home? Do so for an instant “spring clean” feeling!
The advent of spring is a traditional time to spiff up and refresh, so as flowers bloom and days lengthen, we at ICI Homes offer several easy strategies for reframing housecleaning into something that hopefully feels more satisfactory and less like drudgery.
