The Ultimate Spring Cleaning Guide

After many cold months, spring has final­ly sprung! Before you start spend­ing your days out­side, you might want to give your home a clean sweep. Yes, we’re talk­ing about spring clean­ing! Spring clean­ing allows you to fresh­en up your home and get a head start on the warm sea­sons ahead. While it can feel like a daunt­ing task, it can be enjoy­able when you’re armed with a thor­ough spring clean­ing guide.

It’s impor­tant to set aside time to clean and orga­nize your home each year so you can stay healthy and hap­py. By doing some spring clean­ing each year, you can do away with dust, mildew and mold before they turn into more seri­ous prob­lems. Ready to start? This room-by-room spring clean­ing guide will ensure that no room is left behind.

General tasks

When cre­at­ing your spring clean­ing list, start with tasks that apply to every room, like dust­ing (ceil­ing, light fix­tures, fans, cur­tains) and wip­ing sur­faces down (win­dows, blinds, sills). For the cur­tains, grab your vac­u­um clean­er to cov­er every­thing thor­ough­ly. You’ll also need to dust cor­ners crevices for cobwebs.

Next, sweep and mop the floors and vac­u­um the car­pets in each room. A pro­fes­sion­al car­pet clean­ing is also rec­om­mend­ed every year and a half or so. Remem­ber to give your base­boards some TLC; they’re known for col­lect­ing dust and debris. Oth­er often over­looked areas of the home are the walls and doors. They build up dirt over time, so it’s a good prac­tice to take a mag­ic eras­er to them every once in a while. You’ll be sur­prised how they bright­en up with a lit­tle bit of effort.

Final­ly, dis­in­fect the door­knobs, cab­i­net han­dles and all light switch­es. Once you fin­ish gen­er­al clean­ing tasks, you can take a room-by-room approach.

Kitchen

Est. time to clean: 4–6 hours

The kitchen is one of the most dif­fi­cult places to clean in your home. Between appli­ances, cab­i­nets and hard-to-reach cor­ners it can seem over­whelm­ing. But noth­ing beats a squeaky clean kitchen. So gath­er every­thing you need and put on your favorite playlist. By the time you’re done, you’ll be proud of how spot­less it looks.

There are sev­er­al things you will need in order to prop­er­ly clean your kitchen. Grab some rub­ber gloves, clean rags, warm water, bak­ing soda and degreas­ing spray for those stove edges and ovens. Don’t for­get a mop, broom or vac­u­um, and a clean tooth­brush for hard-to-reach corners.

Pro tip: make your own glass clean­er by com­bin­ing vine­gar and water at a 1:1 ratio. 

Cabinets and countertops

Before get­ting into the nit­ty grit­ty, start by tak­ing out the trash and wash­ing the trash cans with warm, soapy water. Then move on to the cab­i­nets. One by one, take every­thing out of each cab­i­net and play a quick game of keep or toss. Toss any­thing that’s expired, expir­ing or that you haven’t used in the past 6 months. Once that’s done, give each cab­i­net a wipe down, then return every­thing to its right­ful place. If you want to take it to the next lev­el, cre­ate an orga­ni­za­tion sys­tem for your cab­i­nets, and don’t be afraid to grab a label mak­er (might as well lean in). Last up, clean the cab­i­net doors—you’d be sur­prised how much dirt gets built up from hands touch­ing doors.

Once the cab­i­nets are done, move on to the coun­ter­tops. Clear every­thing off the coun­ter­tops, then wipe them using soapy water. If you have spe­cial­ty sur­faces like mar­ble, make sure you use the rec­om­mend­ed clean­er. In gen­er­al, clean all sur­faces in your kitchen. For exam­ple, if you have an island make sure to get the sides as well. 

Appliances

With the cab­i­nets and coun­ter­tops done, you can start on your larg­er appli­ances. First up—refrigerator and freez­er. First, remove all the con­tents and toss any­thing that’s expired; you may need to place the con­tents in a cool­er. To clean the fridge and freez­er prop­er­ly, use a mix­ture of hot water and bak­ing soda. 

Next—the stove. Take off all remov­able parts and scrub them using warm, soapy water. If you want to lev­el up, take a tooth­brush to the out­side crevices where the stove meets the coun­ter­top. Once that’s done, clean the oven and microwave. If you don’t want to strug­gle with the microwave, place a microwave-safe con­tain­er with lemon juice inside and boil for two to three min­utes. The lemon juice steam will loosen every­thing up. Don’t for­get small­er appli­ances like your cof­fee mak­er or blender. Give them a full wipe down and maybe a thor­ough wash.

Living Room

Est. time to clean: 2–4 hours

The liv­ing room is like­ly the first room that your guests will see and spend time in when they vis­it you. Because you spend so much time there, it can be dif­fi­cult to keep the room tidy. 

Start by decluttering

Spring clean­ing time gives you an oppor­tu­ni­ty to declut­ter. Remove every­thing that you no longer need and put it in dif­fer­ent bags depend­ing on where the stuff is going. Think: move, donate, dis­card. Label the bags so you don’t end up throw­ing away the things you may need at some point.

Clean soft furniture

Once you’re done declut­ter­ing, you can start clean­ing your soft fur­ni­ture. Things like sofas and throw pil­lows can col­lect a lot of dust over time. If your room is a bit humid, they can also hide mold or mildew, too. And if you have kids or pets, there’s a good chance it’s time for a wash.

Start by remov­ing all the cush­ions from your sofas. To clean these, laun­der the cov­ers if you can. There should be labels with instruc­tions on how to clean the cush­ion covers.

If your cush­ions are non-wash­able, throw the cov­er in a tum­ble dry­er with­out heat. This will remove the dust. How­ev­er, if the cov­ers are not remov­able, don’t throw the entire cush­ion inside. Instead, take it out­side and and give it a good shake out or use a rug beat­er. Let the cush­ions air out­side while you go back inside to deal with the sofas.

To clean your sofa struc­ture, you’ll need a dry brush, vac­u­um, bak­ing soda, warm water, a tow­el and a steam­er if you have one. Before using any clean­ing deter­gent, make sure you go over the man­u­fac­tur­er’s recommendations.

Use a dry brush to remove any loose par­ti­cles. The brush can also help to bring dust and dirt to the sur­face. Once you’re done with the brush, use a hand-held vac­u­um to remove loose par­ti­cles. After that, you can clean with the bak­ing soda. Sprin­kle bak­ing soda over the entire couch. This is a good way to do away with odors and loosen stains. If there are any deep-set stains, you can use a bak­ing soda solu­tion. Let it sit for 20 min­utes, then vac­u­um it up with a brush attachment.

Dust the rest

Remove all items from flat sur­faces and dust them. If you have any book­shelves, dust those too. Try using a damp cloth for your sur­faces, but make sure you rinse the cloth from time to time. If it starts look­ing too dirty, switch and use a fresh one. Once you’re done wip­ing your fur­ni­ture, pol­ish it using a lint-free cloth.

Dining Room

Est. time to clean: 1–2 hours

Even if you only use your din­ing room for show, you still need to place it on your spring clean­ing list. For­tu­nate­ly, the din­ing room does­n’t usu­al­ly have a lot of fur­ni­ture packed in it. If you already did a whole house sweep, it means you will have prob­a­bly tak­en care of the walls, ceil­ings, cur­tains and blinds by the time you get to the din­ing room. The only thing you’ll need to spend time on is the din­ing table, chairs and any oth­er pieces of furniture.

Wood is one of the most com­mon mate­ri­als when it comes to din­ing room tables. But it’s also sur­pris­ing­ly a bit dif­fi­cult to take care of. If you let dust accu­mu­late, it can end up scratch­ing the fin­ish. If you place it too close to a source of heat, it could warp.

To clean and pro­tect your din­ing room table, you need microfiber clean­ing cloths, soapy water and a small bowl. Use a cloth to wipe down the table, then damp­en it to remove dust, crumbs and grime. After this, you can apply your soapy water and gen­tly rub the sur­face of your table. Be care­ful not to scrub too hard as this can dam­age the fin­ish. Once the table is clean, dry and buff it using a dry microfiber cloth. You can also do the same with the chairs if they’re wood­en. If you have uphol­stered chairs, spot clean the seat like you would your uphol­stered fur­ni­ture (read on for tips).

Bedroom

Est. time to clean: 2–3 hours

Before you get into the more spe­cif­ic tasks, you should start with your dai­ly bed­room clean­ing rou­tine. Pick up dirty clothes and orga­nize the room. Once that’s done, you can start declut­ter­ing. Use your edi­to­r­i­al eye to do away with any­thing that no longer serves you (a la Marie Kon­do), like old linen and clothes you don’t wear. After that, wash the entire­ty of your bedding.

Upholstered furniture

Most peo­ple tend to neglect uphol­stered fur­ni­ture when doing their spring clean­ing. You need to keep in mind that through­out the year, the beds, sofas, and soft fur­nish­ings in the home will be gath­er­ing lots of dust. After all, these are poten­tial­ly the most fre­quent­ly used items in your home. Many peo­ple don’t clean uphol­stered fur­ni­ture because they don’t know where to start.

There are a vari­ety of clean­ing prod­ucts to choose from for uphol­stered fur­ni­ture, like stain removers, clean­ing cloths and anti-bac­te­r­i­al sprays. While clean­ing, you need to ensure that you don’t end up soak­ing your fur­ni­ture in clean­ing prod­ucts or water. Uphol­stered fur­ni­ture does not dry quick­ly, and you can end up dam­ag­ing your belong­ings. The best method is to vac­u­um your uphol­stery and spot treat as need­ed. Every two years, it’s a good idea to get uphol­stered fur­ni­ture pro­fes­sion­al­ly cleaned. This arti­cle from The Spruce gives a more spe­cif­ic break­down of uphol­stery clean­ing rules.

Mattresses

It’s rec­om­mend­ed to change your mat­tress every eight years. So, if the one you have is old­er than that, you may need to start shop­ping around for anoth­er one. If your mat­tress is still new, give it a thor­ough clean to make it last a lit­tle longer.

The best way to clean your mat­tress is to use the uphol­stery attach­ment on your vac­u­um. Don’t for­get to give the sides and under­side a good hoover as well. If you feel like the mat­tress isn’t clean enough, you can sprin­kle some bak­ing soda over it and leave it for an hour. After that, vac­u­um it again, and it should be as good as new.

Outdoor spaces

Est. time to clean: 1–2 hours

Before you start plan­ning the ulti­mate out­door sea­son­al kick­off par­ty, you might want to refresh your patio and entire out­door area. If you are one of those peo­ple who spray and/or vac­u­um off your patio fur­ni­ture in the sum­mer and at the end of the fall months, your spring clean­ing may be a lot eas­i­er. Keep­ing your patio fur­ni­ture clean will pro­long its life and keep it in pris­tine condition.

Outdoor furniture

For most of your out­door fur­ni­ture, you just need a buck­et of warm water, a sponge, and liq­uid soap. How­ev­er, if your fur­ni­ture is wood­en, you need to find for­mu­lat­ed clean­ers from fur­ni­ture shops or wood manufacturers.

To clean your out­door fur­ni­ture, you need to brush off loose dirt, apply soapy water and use a sponge or brush to clean. If there are any cush­ions, wash them with a soft brush and set them up in the sun so they can dry. Even bet­ter if they’re machine wash­able. Avoid putting them in the dry­er to pre­vent dis­fig­u­ra­tion. Make sure they are com­plete­ly dry before return­ing them to furniture.

Rugs & flooring

Don’t for­get to think about the floors, even out­doors. Depend­ing on the type of floor­ing you have, you can pres­sure wash, scrub or sim­ply wipe down the surfaces. 

If you have rugs make sure to wash the rug itself as well as the floor­ing under the rug. For out­door rugs, shake them out, vac­u­um them, then scrub them down with warm water and a lit­tle bit of dish soap. Then lean your rug on an ele­vat­ed sur­face, rinse it with a hose, and leave it there to ful­ly air dry.

Spring clean­ing can be fun (depend­ing on what your thresh­old for fun is), we swear! Grab a friend or a part­ner, and your favorite tunes and bev­er­ages to put a pos­i­tive spin on the task. It gives you an oppor­tu­ni­ty to declut­ter and breathe new life into your home, and you’ll love the way your place looks when you’re done. With this spring clean­ing guide, you can ensure that every cor­ner of your home is cleaned prop­er­ly. Stay tuned for a room-by-room clean­ing check­list that you can reference.