Spring Clean with Style
WITH the stay at home order in full force, our homes have never had such a good opportunity for the best spring cleaning of all time. Extra time on our hands and extra bodies around to help move, tidy and clean means we can get our houses set for the summer in a way we could only imagine in years gone by.
Not only can we get the duster out and the vacuum round properly, we have the opportunity to rethink, redesign and replan our homes – hitting the honey-do list hard and maybe experimenting with new room layouts or looking at long overdue decorating projects.
With Marie Kondo all the rage, what better time than to reassess and reappraise the objects and items in our lives? Especially if you now have children home 24/7 and they seem to need the space more than the tatty recliner that has never quite made it to the devil strip.
Decluttering is a great place to start with a deep spring clean – after all, you have to move the item to dust it anyway, so if you are not sparked with joy holding it, save yourself the effort and pass onto a goodwill collection or put aside for that yard sale to end all yard sales when social distancing ends.
As items are marked for disposal, look at the space they left behind – does the furniture look beyond its best? Has the cat damaged the couch upholstery just that bit too far over the years? Did you ever really manage to get that wine stain out of the rug?
As you strip back your rooms to the basics – well vacuumed carpets, wiped down baseboards, washed hardwood floors or tiles – look around for those little jobs you have been putting off or quick improvements that may freshen up your décor such as new light switch or outlet plates.
Take the time to go a level deeper than normal and sanitize your surfaces. Hard surfaces are naturally pretty easy with disinfectants and cleaning products but many of us overlook our soft furnishings, upholstery and fabrics – steam can often be a great way to clean, both brightening up colors and killing off any germs in the cloth.
Don’t forget the areas easily overlooked – baseboards, ceiling fans, tops of door frames and windows – all great dust catchers we usually forget about.
Have a look at your walls – pictures and paintings that have been in place potentially for decades. Do they still inspire you? Maybe it is time for an overhaul of your wall hangings to update the look and feel of the room.
You may well find that now is the time for a fresh coat of paint too - if you are moving pictures you may see that the sun has faded the exposed walls leaving you with a patchwork of shades. Your room will feel brand new with a new color and you will experience a freshness to match the spring.
And make the most of the spring – open the windows wide, let the fresh air inside to circulate and remove the cooped-up sense of winter. Sunlight is one of the best disinfectants available so – especially at this time – let it stream into your home.
While all this freshening, brightening and making new is happening it is also a great time to look at your windows – do your curtains or blinds fit your new room and new you?
One of the quickest ways to make a substantial difference to your room is to look at your window dressings – many people’s curtains can be hanging for decades without anyone really sparing a second thought about them. Yet they do so much – they are not just for god looks but serve a range of practical purposes from privacy, to controlling sunlight or blocking out streetlights to helping insulate your home. Your current window treatments could be in desperate need of a deep cleaning as well, or maybe it’s time to just throw them out and start from scratch.
With such a range of types of window dressings and materials available, in nearly infinite styles, patterns and colors you can completely change the character of a room quickly and simply and at a reasonable cost to make the statement you want. Fill out the contact form on our website to have one of our designers contact you about create your perfect custom window treatments.