gmhTODAY 25 gmhTODAY April May 2019 | Page 52

Spring Cleaning Made Easy T here are two types of people out there: those who love spring cleaning and those who don’t. If you have never done spring cleaning before or you find it daunting, here are some helpful cleaning tips and hacks that will have your home sparkling in no time. The Cleaning Game Plan Having a strategy is the key to a successful spring cleaning. Look around your home and identify the areas that need the most work. What places do you tend to skip during your normal cleaning routine? What areas have you scarcely looked at in who-knows-how long? Those places make a great starting point. Knowing how you work best is another key to success. Some people prefer to get all of their cleaning done in one weekend, while others prefer to pace themselves and work in small increments throughout their house. If you like to compartmentalize, working room by room is a good cleaning method, or if you prefer to dabble in every room, the thirty-day cleaning challenge might work better. It really doesn’t matter if your spring cleaning is a race or a marathon. What counts is that it gets done. De-Clutter First It helps to clear everything out of the space you’ll be cleaning before you start. That way you know what actually needs dusting, sweeping, or washing, and what you can just throw out. Set aside bins or boxes labeled “Keep,” “Store,” “Donate,” and “Trash,” and go through each room sorting what stays and what goes. 52 Written By Crystal Han Ceiling Fan Trick-or-Treat Make a Cleaning Kit Have your cleaning arsenal assembled before you start your battle with the dirt and dust. You will need an all-purpose cleaner, disinfecting wipes, rubber gloves, glass cleaner, a sponge and scrubber, a small duster, and several cleaning rags. Keep all of your supplies in a basket or one of those kiddy rolling carts so that you can take them from room to room with you without any hassle. You’ll also need a heavy duty vacuum cleaner and a mop. Grout Hack Instead of spending hours scrubbing grout with a toothbrush, find a cleaning solution that does most of the work for you. Oxygen bleach, such as OxiClean or Clorox OxiMagic, lifts the dirt from your grout without stripping the color the way normal bleach does. Just mix a gallon of hot water with a quarter cup of powdered oxygen bleach. Working in small sections, pour the solution in an “S” formation on the floor, then take a scrub brush and spread the solution in a thin layer across each section. You don’t need a lot of elbow grease for this. A simple one-two-three motion will do. Let the solution sit for thirty to sixty minutes and then wipe your floors with a damp rag or mop. The grout will brighten as it dries. The Vacuum is Your Friend Why stop with just the carpets? Make use of your vacuum’s attachments and use them to clean window sills and wall corners. The soft brush attachments can be used to dust books, bookshelves, lampshades, pillows, mattresses, and upholstered furniture. GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN april/may 2019 Have you ever seen what’s lurking on top of your ceiling fan? It’s truly the stuff of nightmares. Rather than risk scattering all of that dust over every- thing below, try using an old pillowcase. Spray the inside of the pillowcase with Pledge or Endust, and then carefully slide the pillowcase over the ceiling fan blade. Holding the opening of the case firmly over the top and bottom of the blade, slide the pillowcase back along the blade. The trick is that the pillow- case will catch all of that dust and the treat is that you won’t have to worry about your furniture and floors getting dirty. Lemon Power Turns out lemons can do a lot more than make lemonade. Rubbing half a lemon on faucets will break down hard water stains and make your fixtures shine. To loosen grime inside your microwave, mix the juice of a lemon and the rinds with a half cup of water. Microwave the mixture for three minutes, and then let it stand for five minutes without opening the microwave door. The lemon steam will break down the grime and make it easy to wipe away. Running lemon rinds, a handful of crushed ice, and a little salt through your garbage disposal will neutralize odors. gmhtoday.com Continued on page 97