Spring cleaning anyone? Share your plans/progress - Page 3

In-x-s · ‎03-09-2010

I'm running a little behind schedule ...... I did take down the curtains on the back porch and wash them and do the inside windows. Will eventually move room to room; can't wait to start washing walls/curtains/doors etc in the main living areas. It's Fall cleaning I've just started though LOL - as I said, running a little behind this year.

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

@mousiegirl wrote:
@Mominohio wrote:
@Mom2Dogs wrote:
@Mominohio....do use a sponge to clean you walls? I am pretty good at keeping the house clean, but have never washed my walls...they are plaster. I have used the vacuum on them.......

@Mom2Dogs

I think when people hear 'wash walls' they picture buckets of sudsy water and like washing a car.

That would be a disaster!

I use a bucket of hot water with Murphy's Oil Soap, and either an old wash cloth or a microfiber cloth, wrung out super dry, then wipe the walls and baseboards, and window trim and doors with that. Rinse the rag out frequently and you'll be surprised how dirty the water is by the time you get done. I take down all pictures etc, and clean them good too, as well as move all furniture to wash behind it.

We don't have fingerprints and scuffs or the usual things people get on walls like when they have kids, but the dust and dirt from heating systems, having the widows open all summer etc. and just daily living is astonishing.

In my last home, my walls were plaster, and they are drywall in our current home. I have had papered walls and painted walls, and all can be safely washed this way.

It isn't a job I really enjoy doing, taking all this stuff down, washing walls, doors, baseboards, curtains, furniture (wood furniture loves a good cleaning with the Murphy's), all bed linens, then steam cleaning the upholstered pieces and carpets more toward summer, but I love the finished product.

And I'm always shocked, as I clean thoroughly throughout the year, just how dirty the water is in that bucket, in many of my rooms.

Life is dirty!! LOL

@Mominohio No matter how clean a person's hands are, there are still oils and eventually, they appear on doors, usually not walls. If my pups sit with their backs on a door, eventually color will show due to the natural body oil, even though they are clean and not oily, lol. When I had cats, they would rub their cheeks on a door frame or wherever, and eventually there would be a brown color, easily washed off.

@mousiegirl

You are so right about the oils in animals skin/coats. Even well groomed pets create a lot of hair and dirt!

We have a dog and two cats, so that contributes a lot to my need to clean....every day....but they are so worth it!

When cats rub their faces on things I've been told they are marking things, and you are right, that muck they get on things clean up easily but it drives me nuts, as one of my cats does this all day long.

SilleeMee · ‎05-22-2016

I love threads like this one. For me they are motivating.

Carmie · ‎10-25-2010

Why do spring cleaning in the middle of winter? It’s snowing here and our streets are salted down. I have enough problems trying to keep the ice, snow and salt out.

i don’t spring clean until I can I open the windows and let the fresh air in. Spring is still a long ways off.

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

@Carmie wrote:
Why do spring cleaning in the middle of winter? It’s snowing here and our streets are salted down. I have enough problems trying to keep the ice, snow and salt out.

i don’t spring clean until I can I open the windows and let the fresh air in. Spring is still a long ways off.

@Carmie

I have to tend big garden, a small fruit orchard, 5 acres to mow and all the outside work at my mom's house (mulching, power washing, staining the deck) as well as the same at mine, starting in mid April.

If I don't do this in January and February it simply wouldn't get done. Even the fall has canning and outdoor clean up and mowing up till Thanksgiving.

And the point of spring cleaning is to do it while it will last for awhile. Once the windows come open here, the woods right outside our door and the many many pines we have, rain pollen for weeks, so it would be cleaned just in time to get dirty again. There are days I have to close the windows because the pollen is so bad! THe wind blows and it looks like it is foggy or like you are on a dirt road!

So 'spring' cleaning gets done when the other work is at a minimum!

SunValley · ‎04-19-2010

@Mominohio wrote:
It has begun for me!

Today I washed down the walls in the guest bathroom, took down the exhaust fan cover in there and cleaned it out (and the cover) good, washed the rugs and decorative towels, and in general cleaned the fixtures.

Moved on to taking down all the bedroom curtains and washing and ironing and rehanging them (after washing the windows too). Most of the beds were stripped to the core before Christmas, so just giving a quick wash to the quilts to freshen them tomorrow, as well as washing the walls and baseboards in all three bedrooms.

IT will probably take me two more days to finish that floor, then next week, I'll start on the main floor doing the same thing.

Thought we might want a thread to share what and when we are doing for spring cleaning.

Feel free to share any odd or often forgotten things/areas you are getting into. My bathroom exhaust fans were pretty gross.

I thought I did a pretty good job and now I know I’m a complete slob. Lol

Carmie · ‎10-25-2010

@Mominohio That makes sense. For me winter is for hibernating. I am not home from April 15 to Oct 15 except for two days a week and for six weeks in the summer, I am not home at all.

i am retired so keep up with my cleaning and I don’t have to devote whole days or whole weeks doing it. I always do an extra going over everything before Christmas.

To me spring cleaning is scrubbing patio furniture and changing out the screens on the windows.

Everywhere I look, especially in retail, you would think spring is here, but a look out of the window confirms that it isn’t.

it’s 20 degrees out and snowing.

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

@Carmie wrote:
@Mominohio That makes sense. For me winter is for hibernating. I am not home from April 15 to Oct 15 except for two days a week and for six weeks in the summer, I am not home at all.

i am retired so keep up with my cleaning and I don’t have to devote whole days or whole weeks doing it. I always do an extra going over everything before Christmas.

To me spring cleaning is scrubbing patio furniture and changing out the screens on the windows.

Everywhere I look, especially in retail, you would think spring is here, but a look out of the window confirms that it isn’t.

it’s 20 degrees out and snowing.

@Carmie

20 degrees??!!

That's a heat wave!

I've had enough of winter already this year.

I look forward to this time of year to get all this inside work done, and at a nice leasurly pace on my own time schedule (summer work is all at the whim of mother nature!!) and to get a break from all that outdoor stuff that needs done, but we had two really mild winters, so this one is rather hard to take.

I will say, I'm not spending much money, as it is just too cold to want to venture out and do anything. I'm going a week at a time and not even leaving the property!

Once this spring cleaning is done, I'll be wishing for May!

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

@SunValley wrote:
@Mominohio wrote:
It has begun for me!

Today I washed down the walls in the guest bathroom, took down the exhaust fan cover in there and cleaned it out (and the cover) good, washed the rugs and decorative towels, and in general cleaned the fixtures.

Moved on to taking down all the bedroom curtains and washing and ironing and rehanging them (after washing the windows too). Most of the beds were stripped to the core before Christmas, so just giving a quick wash to the quilts to freshen them tomorrow, as well as washing the walls and baseboards in all three bedrooms.

IT will probably take me two more days to finish that floor, then next week, I'll start on the main floor doing the same thing.

Thought we might want a thread to share what and when we are doing for spring cleaning.

Feel free to share any odd or often forgotten things/areas you are getting into. My bathroom exhaust fans were pretty gross.
I thought I did a pretty good job and now I know I’m a complete slob. Lol

@SunValley

You're not a slob, I'm just incapable of not doing this every year!

151949 · ‎03-09-2010

@mousiegirl If you ever washed your walls or had them washed and experienced the wonderful clean feel and smell of the house when it was done - you would do them every year. I would have my carpets steam cleaned at the same time - OMG ultimate clean, like a brand new house.