Hi there, it’s Vero from @verobujo on Instagram & YouTube, today I’m writing about all things Spring Cleaning. 

Spring often feels like a fresh start, plants are blooming, colors are popping, and animals are emerging from hibernation. But unfortunately, your house doesn’t clean itself. It can be daunting to spring clean your entire home and many people will avoid it because they don’t know where to begin. The process of clearing a room, decluttering your space, and organizing your belongings doesn’t have to be challenging. Cleaning your space can be easy, the toughest part is starting. We'll also be creating a spring cleaning bullet journal tracker for your bujo.

So that being said here are my essential tips for cleaning your home. 

Essential Spring Cleaning Tips for your home

1 - Start with the easiest household chore. The word “easiest” in this context is relative, what is easy for me, may not be easy for you. For example, my easy chore is picking up all of my dirty laundry and throwing it in the washing machine. 

2 - Set a 20-minute timer, and grab your vacuum cleaner. This creates a fun way to clean, you’re trying to clean as much as you can in just 20 minutes! You’ll often find that 20 minutes fly by, and you may even want to continue cleaning after!

3 - Clean Room by Room. This one tends to be easier said than done, especially if you’re cleaning a space you haven’t cleansed in a while. Because you’ll get distracted by everything, try your hardest, and if you don’t succeed, try try again! 

4 - Clear your clutter. Do this by using a categorization system. Pick up all the items lying around and sort them into one of these four categories: throw, donate/give away, store away, put away. The difference between storing away and putting away here is that storing is packing things in harder-to-access areas (such as moving winter clothes to storage), putting away means something has a place in your home and needs to be put back in its place. 

5 - Get everyone involved. Cleaning is not and should not be a one-person show. Give age-appropriate chores to every member of the household, blast some music, get beverages, and make it more fun! 

Next up, let’s go over each room and the big things you’ll need to remember to clean! This blog post also comes with a free Spring Cleaning Checklist that you can print off and add to. You can find the printable at the end of the blog post. 

Clean Room by Room

Pro Tip: As a general rule, start cleaning a room from top to bottom, because dust will move downwards!

Kitchen

In your kitchen, you’re dealing with dust, cooking oil, food, and more. This is also the place where you’ll gather with family and friends, so keeping it clean will make you feel a lot better! Don’t forget to apply my essential spring cleaning tips to each room! 

[Photo by R ARCHITECTURE on Unsplash]

• Wipe down walls & ceilings, this can be done with a citrus-based product diluted with water
• Empty & clean your pantry, fridge and freezer, discard expired goods, don’t forget to de-freeze those questionable items to see what they are
• Tidy/Re-organize drawers and cupboards, don’t forget the categorization system from earlier!
• Clean all surfaces, kitchen appliances both inside and out, don’t forget to clean the underside of your fridge

Bathroom(s)

The bathroom is where we clean ourselves, so it’s imperative that it be clean as well! 

[Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash]

• Empty cabinets and drawers, dispose safely of expired medication and cosmetics, then reorganize
• Clean down all surfaces including sink, shower, and toilet. Don’t forget to use a disinfectant cleaner for germs!
• Re-grout any broken seals around the bathroom

Bedroom(s)

This is where you sleep every night, so ensuring that you are not breathing in dust and mites is imperative

[Photo by Spacejoy on Unsplash]

• Change your sheets, shake your duvet outside, and get rid of the dust! Leave the duvet hanging in the sun before bringing back inside for storage or to reuse.
• Air out your mattress and rotate it
• Vacuum under the bed, all the nooks and crannies, the shelves, behind your curtains and the ceiling (in case some cobwebs have made an appearance)
• Go through your wardrobe and move winter clothes to storage and spring/summer clothes forward.
• Donate clothes that are in good condition that you no longer want, and throw clothes that are in bad condition. You could also keep one or two old t-shirts as a rag. 

Pro-tip Spring is also the time for you to move your furniture around and get some new decor for a new look! 

Living Room

This is where you spend your down-time, so its a place you’d want to keep clean!

[Photo by Spacejoy on Unsplash]

• Review your books, CDs, DVDs, Games and use the categorization method to purge any you no longer need
• Dust your TV
• Wash your soft furnishings (cushion covers, table cloths, blankets)

Study/Office

While you work, you don’t often think about cleaning and organizing all the time, so this is your opportunity to do so

[Photo by Mikey Harris on Unsplash]

• Clean and reorganize  your drawers, cupboards, shelves, and on-desk accessories 

• Wipe down the surfaces and furniture
• Shred and recycle old paperwork
• Disinfect your keyboard, mouse and any accessories you use often

Pro-tip Do you really need all of those pens you got for free? 

Laundry

Your laundry is where you store all of your cleaning products, so it only makes sense for our cleaning products to get cleaned! 

[Photo by PlanetCare on Unsplash]

• Clean your washing machine and dryer filters
• Run a wash cycle on your empty washing machine
• Stock take your cleaning products and throw away expired products safely

Other things to think about 

While we’ve covered most of our bases, there are a few additional things to clean around the house that you may not have thought about!

• Dust blinds, light fixtures, ceiling fans, and floor/ceiling vents.
• Clean windows inside and out
• Wipe doorknobs, light switches, and picture frames.
• Don’t throw away your food scraps, start composting! 
• Test your smoke alarm

Create a Spring Cleaning checklist in your Bullet Journal

Now that we have an idea of what we want to clean, let’s also create this Spring Cleaning Journal Spread

Supplies

• A5 Dot-Grid Journal from Archer & Olive to create your spreads
• Calliograph pens from Archer & Olive to write out titles
• Gel pens from Archer & Olive to write out cleaning categories
• Ruler 

Steps

• List your spaces on a separate piece of paper

• Divide your two pages into four different columns, column 1-3 will be for the categories you’re cleaning

• List the things you need to clean in each space and leave extra space for things you may not have thought of yet

• Column four is for planning the days you’ll be cleaning each area

If you prefer a visual guide, check out the related YouTube video where I show you exactly how to create this spread:

Or if you want something to print out so you can get right to decluttering, grab this free printable:

Community Inspiration for other Spring Cleaning Trackers

Turn your Spring Cleaning Tracker into a more fun and interactive one like Brittany!

[Spring Cleaning Tracker by Britsplans]

Looking for another fun twist on a Spring Clean Tracker? Why not try making a bingo card with things you need to clean! 

[Spring Cleaning Bingo by Oopsadaisyuk]

Try Lurinda & Lindsy's Cleaning Scheduler! 

[Spring Clean Schedule by art.by.lurinda]

Keep it short and sweet like A Piece of Mind's Tracker!

[Spring Clean Tracker by pieceofmindjournal]

Categorize your cleaning objectives by room like Emily (a fellow Ambassador!!)

[Spring Clean Tracker by Emily from Plannedandplanted]