Do you sometimes notice how dirty it can feel in places, even if you can’t see it?
All of a sudden you start itching everywhere and it smells old ingrown dirt. Like it hasn’t been aired for weeks.
And in some places, it just sparkles. But you can’t point out exactly where it’s so much cleaner or why you feel so good and welcome in there. Fresh and crispy like an early spring breeze.
The secret
As a tween, (in those days a tween was still a child), I used to go with a friend of mine to her family’s summer house for the last weeks of the summer holiday.
This house was, or still is, one of the sparkling kinds. A beautiful red wooden house with pastel colours inside. And it felt so good to be there. Much thanks to my friend’s mom.
One week before we were returning to Stockholm (in her pink Beetle) and school, she started to clean. I remember watching her on the ladder scrubbing away with such energy and determination. Her red hair was swaying from one side to the other glittering in the late summer sun. Her eyes focused on the task at hand and we could hardly get her attention.
She reached all the corners and funny places and made them shine. Beside her, she had a bucket of water, and she wore gloves (that you don’t need with our all-around cleaning product Ecoclean Homeline)
While often changing the bucket with water and cleaning product, she took a few dance steps to the music blasting out from the radio. We were intrigued and amused, how could anyone have so much fun cleaning? we said to each other while comparing who was most tanned. At the same time we felt melancholy, it marked the end of the summer, and a new school year was coming around the corner very fast.
My friend’s mom wanted the house to rest comfortably over the winter months and be fresh and inviting for her sister and her family who usually came there at the beginning of the summer every year.
The secret of a fresh and sparkling home, she said with a conspiratory smile, was to regularly clean all the spots and places that you don’t typically clean weekly. And these spaces are often overlooked.
She said, yes it’s important to clean the kitchen cupboard, oven, the windows, and curtains (if you have any) that's clear. But don’t forget the walls, the doors, the window frames, the blinds. An all the corners and floor frames.
Use cleaning for other purposes as well
My husband is very good at cleaning as well. He gets the same determined look on his face as my friend’s mom. When he wipes, either he uses up and down movements or circulations, depending on the material.
He switches arms as well, sometimes the right sometimes the left and when I asked him about that many years ago, he answered me like it was the most stupid question he had heard for a long time. “Fitness!” He said with a thrill in his voice, “to train both arms, of course, it’s perfect!”. He pulled his sleeve up and demonstrated his biceps, “touch” he commanded. And I couldn’t do anything but agree, cleaning is great for muscle power. Then he also showed me how to wipe for the best result for both cleaning and muscle building.
He and our cleaning lady usually do most of the spring cleaning together (lucky me!), like cleaning the windows and all the frames and doors and funny, hardly reachable corners.
Like with most things, it’s the mindset
For most people cleaning is probably not the favourite task to do. But with the right mindset and good music, I promise you, it can be fun and be freeing.
Maybe your cleaning lady (or man) does it all, or perhaps you together, like by us. Either way, set a weekend off, prepare yourself mentally and get the right tools.
What’s so cool with our all-purpose cleaning product Ecoclean Homeline, is that you can use it for all the cleaning applications. You don’t need ten different products. You can use it for, painted surfaces, plastic, marble, wood, stainless steel…. you name it. It’s truly meant for basic cleaning.
What you need
Tool list:
Where to spring clean:
If you have already done some tidying / decluttering and given your things a proper place/home, the cleaning will go much faster. Not just the spring cleaning, your weekly cleaning and everyday tasks will be like a walk in the park.
Book a date, get the tools, open the windows, turn on the music and start climbing that ladder to reach all the fun places and make your home shine and sparkle!
PS. To boost your mood and get you moving, check out James the chicken enjoying a vacuum ride
PSS. And share it if you think this article would be useful for someone else.
