Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Why do they call it spring cleaning?

We’ve just hit a fantastic date in the weather watching calendar, when Mother Nature decides to slip in to something a little more comfortable. Yep, the seasons are a changin’, and spring is sprung for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. A costume change is also happening for you in the South (as it tends to in this topsy, turvy world), offering a like chance to ready your homestead for the coming new temperatures. Are you ready for a fierce spring clean, or to free your winter woollies from their moth ball beds?

Sustaining the energy for these seasonal cleaning jobs can be difficult. How many times have you gotten half way through removing mould from your grouting using white vinegar and a toothbrush only to wish you’d just painted the black marks with white-out? In the interest of rescuing you from the house cleaning blues, here are a few home tips to add inspiration and organisation to your yearly clean out.


TAKING IT TOO FAR


• Cleaning your oil burner. I have a friend who did this, which is actual insanity. It’s like cleaning the inside of a fire place. 

• Dusting the top of doors. The 1960’s are over (which I presume was the time people swept door top debris into their pans, along with a dream to ever be anything more than a damn housewife whose primary goal is finding the perfect table centrepiece. If Mad Men has taught us anything it’s this, and that a high level of body hair isn’t a turn off if it’s on Jon Hamm.)

• Under the bed. Meh.

• Establishing a CD catalogue system involving stickers, library cards and an overwhelming need to explain the placement of Dr Albarn next to Jeff Buckley. This says more about you than you know…



THINGS YOU SHOULD PROBABLY GET TO AND QUIT AVOIDING


• Bottom of the bin. You’re in denial that bin juice has most definitely found its insidious way through the bin bag and is now making a happy liquid home in the bottom of your receptacle.

• That awkward space around the bottom of the toilet. No long handled implement can access this notorious spot, admit it. This is a hands and knees, face near the bowl kind of job. Hmmm this first, or the bin juice? What choice!

• Receipts. If they’re out dated, get rid of them. Especially the ones from the early 2000s which are so faded you can’t actually tell what you bought but you think it’s a best of Crowded House CD, a packet of malteasers and bandaids. What kind of shop were you in that stocked all those things?

• Go through the everything drawer. I once found three mosquito coils, a sparkler, the Pretty Woman soundtrack on cassette and a dead cockroach. Imagine all the cool things tucked away in yours!!



THINGS YOU SHOULD ALREADY BE DOING


• Fridge assessment. Those happy carrots hanging out in the veggie drawer have an unseen side. That would be the side sporting the mould beard. Also once, at a friend’s mum’s, we found a jar of chutney which expired in 1998. Still looked good.

• Freezer. Same as above really. You probably have no idea what it originally was, but now it all looks the same… white.

• Sock drawer clean out. I realised the other day I was wearing fluffy cartoon heart socks. I’m a 30 year old woman.

• Medicine cabinet. Medicine goes off, we’re told. This might be bullshit, so sometimes you think its okay to drop a couple panedine forte from 2005. It probably isn’t.


So aside from channelling a bit of Martha Stewart (minus the actual help and jail time Martha would have brought) I hope you’ve found this guidance and inspiration for your yearly sprucing helpful. Now you just need to find your perfect cleaning soundtrack and polish your halo.



London tomorrow (on this second day of Spring!) as long as you’re not out at 3am, it’ll be sunny skies. Spring time frolicking begin!

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