Spring is just around the corner, and what better way to welcome in the change of the season than to start thinking about some healthy Spring Cleaning! This type of spatial clearing is a great way to rejuvenate the energy of your interiors, physically polish your spaces, reduce your unwanted and burdensome clothing and material items and set your home up for summer. This can tend to feel like a big scary project, one that you can’t see yourself undertaking this season. It doesn’t have to be so cumbersome, and that’s why we’ve crafted a few helpful tips straight from the experts in space optimization to guide you through your Spring Cleaning transformation.
1.Have You Seen My…?
The first task on your list is to clear. Tackle your living room, bedrooms, and especially your closets. Identify what items you want to keep, and then those that you think you can safely let go of. A good trick is to take everything out of your closets, lay it out on the floor, and then go through each piece of clothing, your shoes and stowed away items and ask yourself if you seriously need it. Marie Kondo famously refers to this as “what items spark joy?”. If you can’t live without it, put it in the “keep” pile. On the other hand, if you find yourself realizing that you haven’t worn or used the item in a year or so, it’s probably time to let it go. Put it in the “give away” pile. Your “give” pile should consist of different categories, such as:
- Recycling
- Goodwill/Salvation Army
- For Friends
- Garage Sale
- Landfill
After you’ve successfully categorized your items, move the “give” items into the garage where they won’t continue to clutter your space. Make a note to spend an afternoon dropping all of these items off at their different locations. This first task on your five-step list has just effectively cleared up a lot of space in your home to be able to reorganize the remaining items, clean and rejoice in your fresh space.
2. Hand Me The Broom!
The second chore is, you guessed it… to clean! For this next task, you’ll want to thoroughly check your cleaning supplies arsenal and pick up anything from the store you may need before diving headfirst into the mayhem. You don’t want to begin your cleaning extravaganza and realize that you need more sponges, bleach cleaner or Swiffer wipes.
What you’ll need:
- Vacuum
- Sponges
- Rubber gloves
- Windex/glass cleaner
- All-purpose cleaner
- Tile bleach/cleaner
- Wood polish
- Swiffers wipes
- Dusters
- Broom
Once you have everything you need, start to systematically move through each room in the house until it’s all done. Some key places and things you’ll want to scrub and freshen include:
windows, carpets/rugs, doormats, the kitchen, microwave, stovetop, silverware tray, “junk drawer”, hard-to-reach corners, desks, doorknobs, bathroom mirrors, sinks, under beds, to name a few.
We suggest putting on some fun music and taking necessary snack breaks to make the process more enjoyable. It’s more of a marathon than a race, better to lean into the experience than away from it.
3. Now, We Organize.
Now that you’ve scrubbed, scraped and deep-cleaned every possible nook and cranny in your house, the time has come to organize. Because you already did the preliminary clearing of unwanted items, you just need to creatively organize what’s left. Sometimes, its easier to organize when you have some novel inspiration to get the process started. A good way to transform your closets, for example, is to replace your drab closet doors with fresh milky glass closet doors. Mirrored doors enhance and amplify natural light throughout the room, while also serving a wonderful dual purpose- disguising the unsightly mix of clothing and personal belongings while providing floor length mirrors for you to enjoy. Our decorative closet doors come available in a variety of glass opacities- from mirrored, to translucent or more opaque. Choose from accessory options and panel configurations to customize your sliding doors specifically for your home.
Now that you have a fresh take on your closets, you can carry on organizing the rest of the closet. Fold and hang up clothing, make sure that your most used items are within easy reach and accessible, and most importantly- don’t leave clothing haphazardly cast to the closet floor.
After you finish organizing your closets, move to the remaining rooms in the house.
4. Laundry – the Beast of Burden.
A space often widely overlooked in any home is thelaundry room. This space typically doubles as a toolbox, a larger than life clothing hamper, and a place to toss anything in the spur of the moment that you want to be hidden from visibility- especially right before your guests arrive for that dinner party or book club meeting. Laundry rooms end up being the full-sized embodiment of the “junk drawer”. AKA your worst nightmare. Not to fret! With a few simple solutions, your laundry room will be a fresh scented organizational masterpiece!
What you’ll need:
- Shelving (lots of it)
- A large clothing hamper
- Baskets to organize and place clean laundry
- A set place for soaps, detergents and cleaning products
- A garbage bin (for lint and other trash)
- Took rack (if you don’t already have one in the garage)
Our suggestion? Take your laundry room to the next level with bi-folding doors that hide your washer and dryer machines to add a bit of noise reduction and visible distinction making the space appear less cluttered and more artful. These bi-fold doors are a space saver with their concertina design, folding the doors in on themselves giving you much-needed space amongst tight quarters.
5. Enjoy Your Well-Earned Oasis
By clearing, cleaning, organizing and installing some spatial solutions, you’ve just set yourself up for a stress-free spring. Enjoy the novelty of fresh air, no dust or dirt, optimal organization and an overall lack of material items inundating your interiors. All it took was a bit of planning, some elbow grease, a “bite the bullet” mentality- and you’ve arrived at your well-earned oasis.
For more space optimizing solutions and inspiration, visit The Sliding Door Company to browse our online viewing catalog and Get A Free Quote from one of our team members to start your rental upgrade today!