March 19, 2023

Spring Cleaning

I think I write a post like this every year, but this is the time of year where I get very antsy waiting for the weather to break--so that I can start spring cleaning! So fun, right? ;)  There are so many things I want to work on but it's too cold to be washing windows outside or cleaning the garage with all the doors wide open.

Today in particular, I really wanted to finish weather proofing the windows (I did half of them when we had a few nice days outside). To do that, though, I have to remove the bottom half of the window--and with temps in the SINGLE DIGITS over the past few days, there is no way that I'm going to be opening the windows.

Instead, I walked around the house and made a list of all of the things I want to do this spring. Housework things. Aside from cleaning, I also want to touch up paint, hang pictures, and stuff like that. I'm sure my excitement to spring clean will wane after a couple of days of actually doing it, but I figured I might as well make a list while I feel motived. I'll be so glad to get things done.


So, for what is quite possibly the most boring post of the year, I'm going to list the tasks that I hope to get done before summer. It's a long list, and I likely surely won't get everything done, but here goes...


TO CLEAN:

*Vacuum all of the air vents.

*Clean the living room sofa.

*Clean the kitchen cabinets, inside and out. Touch up paint where it was chipped from moving furniture and things.

*Wipe down all of the walls from floor to ceiling. Today I noticed the dust up by the ceiling and wow--I really need to keep up with it.

*Clean the appliances--stove, refrigerator, dishwasher--really well.

*Wipe down all of the floor molding. I didn't realize just how much dust that would collect over the winter!

*Clean the blinds. Worse than grocery shopping! ;)

*Clean and organize the garage. It's never ending--every time I do a project, it's a disaster again.

*Power wash the exterior of the house. Someone egged our house in the fall and threw the eggs really high (near the top of the rise of the roof). Spraying it with the hose did nothing. We like to power wash the house every year before the "bug guy" comes to spray in the spring (to prevent spiders!).

*Go through closets and donate, sell, or throw away what we don't want or need.

*Clean the things that get ignored most of the time--the top lip of the casing around doors and windows, light switches, washing machine (the exterior), behind the TV console, things like that.


This is 100% how I do things, haha


TO REPAIR/REPLACE/ADJUST:

*Replace a small section of floor molding in the dining room. I removed it when I thought I wanted to put a cabinet there, so there is no molding in the corner.

*Fix or replace some of the interior doors. That was the first thing that Jerry and I did when we started remodeling and we had no clue what we were doing. We didn't do it correctly, and I really want to fix it.

*Replace the bottom sill of one of the windows in the living room. It's gotten a little warped over the last year so I want to fix it before it becomes a big problem.

*Rent a carpet cleaner to clean the carpet in the boys' bedrooms.

*Adjust the towel holder in the bathroom (to make it smaller).

*Replace the thermostat in the hallway. It hasn't been very consistent and I think it's just old.

*Replace the felt pads on the chair legs in the dining room. They tend to collect pet hair over time and the adhesive wears off.



MAINTENANCE:

*Re-caulk the boys' bathroom.

*Level and weatherproof the patio door. I really don't want to have to replace this anytime soon, so I basically want to give it a tune-up.

*Stain the back deck and the stoops. (Jerry and I have been wanting to do this but we're so intimidated! We even bought the stain last summer but we never started.)

*Flush the tankless water heater with vinegar. (We do this once a year)

*Landscaping! My nemesis. Now that I have a blank canvas after the work I did last year, it's time to plant some stuff. Low maintenance stuff.



Okay, that list is long! I would say that it's overwhelming, but I'm actually looking forward to tackling it. (I say that now, but we'll see how I feel when I've been working on it for a while, haha.) Some of the stuff I can obviously do now; today, I replaced the door knob/lock set of the garage. Our key kept getting stuck in the lock and I didn't even want to lock it because it was hard to get back in! So I went to the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store and bought a nice replacement knob. (I love that store for when we need things around the house! Whenever I have to replace something, I like to check there first.)


My favorite part of spring cleaning is going through closets and choosing what to keep, sell, donate, or throw away. And then organizing what's left! I'll probably work on that this week while the weather is still cold. And as soon as we have some nice days outside, I plan to start doing the outdoor stuff.

Does anyone else look forward to spring cleaning like this? No?

I saw these "Monica clean" spring cleaning tips and I thought it very appropriate--as you know, Jerry and I are huge Friends fans. And as much as I hate to admit it, I am very much like Monica!

6 comments:

  1. I wish I liked to clean. Our house is so full of stuff we should get rid of, but we just pile it higher.

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  2. I printed a spring cleaning list, or two, to remind myself what I should do for spring cleaning. I like your list, too! Thanks for boosting my motivation.
    P. S. I LOVE grocery shopping AND Meijer (Cleveland here). Your last experience was awful and I felt bad for you.

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  3. Just reading this wore me out. This is one area where we really differ. It's okay. You still like me. ;-)

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  4. Omg that first cartoon made me laugh out loud! A couple years ago we completely redid our pantry and I literally kept going back into the kitchen to stare at it! Lol too funny :) This is a super motivating list! I have soooo many things I want to get done but my seasonal depression is kicking my butt this year ugh. I need to get some of this motivation to even get a small task done! And I really need some warm weather haha

    ReplyDelete
  5. I actually enjoy spring cleaning and have been working on it for a couple-3 weeks now. We have a huge Easter picnic at our house so I use that as a deadline to get things done (drives my husband crazy, but I like the pressure). I found myself bouncing around like you mentioned, so I decided to start at one end of the house and go room by room.

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  6. Ha ha - your list of things to do and clean reminds me of my sister. She works so hard all the time at cleaning and fixing and improving things - most of which no one else will notice. Somehow I did not inherit that urge, thank goodness! LOL

    ReplyDelete

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