Spring Cleaning Survival Guide

Spring cleaning: it always sounds like something my house desperately needs but something I definitely don’t have time to do. This year, with four kids six and under, my house seems extra dirty and my time seems extra limited. I decided I’d really like to do some spring cleaning, both to make our home feel clean and fresh and also to make it feel more organized. With limited time each day to devote to spring cleaning, (like maybe about 5 minutes if i’m lucky!) I decided to focus on one spring cleaning project per room to start. This made it seem much more manageable and I liked the idea of each room getting a little “spring pick me up”.

Here’s what I did:

Kitchen: In the kitchen I focused on the oven. The top of the stove and counters get cleaned almost daily, but the inside of the oven gets ignored. I did a deep clean of the oven racks. Here’s how to easily, quickly and effectively clean the oven racks:

You’ll need distilled white vinegar, baking soda and Viva® Vantage®. First put the oven racks in your kitchen sink or in your tub if you need more room. Spray them with vinegar and then and then pour baking soda all over them. Let it sit for 15 minutes. Then cover them with really hot water and soak for 10-15 minutes. Drain the water and use your Viva Vantage towels to scrub off all of the grime. Rise, let dry and then admire your shiny oven racks! I use Viva Vantage for this type of cleaning because they have a scrubby texture and they’re durable and tough on grime.

Bathrooms: Our bathrooms are small and get cleaned pretty frequently. So, for a spring clean in the bathrooms I focused on a “restock and refresh”. I added a new hand towel to each and restocked the toilet paper. I stock the powder room in our kitchen with Scott® 1000 bathroom tissue. This bathroom gets a ton of traffic in the spring as it’s right by the back door. My kids constantly run in and out of the house and so do all the kids in the neighborhood! Scott® 1000 rolls are key because, well there are 1,000 sheets. It’s great quality and key in my powder room in the spring. In the other bathrooms I stocked the cabinets with Cottonelle®. We like how soft it is and the Cottonelle® CleanRipple Texture that’s designed to clean better.

Playroom: Operation declutter. Go around the playroom and put together a box of toys to donate. You’ll be surprised how quickly this can give a playroom a “spring clean” feel.

Living Room: In the living room I focused on the hard to reach dusting that often gets skipped like the tops of light fixtures, high hanging television and the fan. For a wood blade fan, an easy cleaning tip is to wrap a flat broom with the super soft Viva® Towels and spray with a little wood cleaner. Then you can reach and properly dust wood ceiling fan blades. I prefer Viva for jobs like dusting because they feel and work like soft cloths but can stand up to any cleaning job.

Kids Bedrooms: Focus on the dressers. Wipe own the fronts of the drawers and knobs. My kids are constantly touching and opening closing dresser drawers. Once I got up close, they were dirtier than I expected. I use Viva® Towels and a non toxic all purpose cleaner. The Viva® Towels are soft enough to clean the delicate fronts of nice furniture like painted dressers. After cleaning the fronts of the dressers, I straightened up what’s inside of the drawers and took out clothes that don’t fit the kids anymore.

Spring cleaning the house from top to bottom is definitely too big of a job to take on this year. Focusing on 1 task per room has made a bigger difference than I expected. It makes me feel better about our crazy, hectic house. The house feels cleaner and a bit more organized.

Here’s a fun info graphic of Spring Cleaning ideas from Kimberly-Clark:

Right now you can find great deals on Viva, Cottonelle and Scott products at Walmart. Stocking up on products to make your spring cleaning easier and more effective is half the job. Walmart is a one-stop shop for all spring cleaning needs.

What are some tips per room you have for Spring Cleaning? Now that I survived my first round of cleaning I’m ready to tackle one more thing per room in the house!