Time for a spring refresh! These ten simple spring cleaning tips will help you clean smarter, not harder!
While I love having a clean, organized home, life is busy! There’s only so much time that I have to spend cleaning each week so efficiency is key. Today I’m sharing ten spring cleaning tips to help you get the most cleaning done in the the least amount of time. (post includes commissionable links; for more information, see my full disclosure statement {here})
1. Let White Vinegar Do the Work for You!
If you have hard water, I’m sure you’re all too familiar with the stubborn mineral deposits that build up around the base of your faucet handles and on shower and faucet heads. White vinegar works like magic on these! But instead of spending forever scrubbing and scrubbing away, mineral deposits wipe right away if give the white vinegar time to do the work for you.
On the faucet/handle bases, I’ve found the easiest way to do this is to wrap a small piece of paper towel around the base and spray it with white vinegar until it’s soaked through. Push the soaked paper towel down around your faucet/handle base so it’s in close contact, and let it sit until the mineral deposits have loosened up and you can simply wipe them away!
For faucet and shower heads that have mineral deposits, I fill a baggie with white vinegar, submerge my faucet or shower head in it and wrap a rubber band around it to soak.
Note that because vinegar is acidic, it can damage metal finishes on faucets and showerheads with prolonged exposure. I set a timer on my phone for 30 minutes of soaking and have personally never had any issues. Don’t use vinegar for any length of time on natural stone surfaces, such as marble, because it can dull/etch the surface.
I keep the vinegar I use for cleaning in a glass spray bottle with silicone sleeve, such as {these}:
I use white vinegar to clean glass and mirrors too. The combination of white vinegar with {this cleaning cloth kit} is magic for windows!
2. Have the Right Cleaning Tools
As is the case with any task, having the right tools for cleaning is key for making it easier and quicker! If I had to choose a favorite time-saving cleaning tool, it would be {this battery-powered spin brush} that comes with a multipurpose head and a grout cleaning head. The multipurpose head is great for cleaning hard-to-reach spaces like around faucet handles:
But where it really shines is with the grout cleaning brush that has a tapered tip that really gets into the grout lines for a good clean:
The combination of my spin brush with {this grout cleaner} makes my least favorite of all cleaning jobs (cleaning the shower) much more tolerable! See my post on how to clean floor tile grout for more tips on what works and what doesn’t for cleaning grout. Also check out my post on my favorite deep cleaning tools for the other cleaning tools I swear by for saving me time and effort!
3. Use Dryer Balls to Dry Your Clothes Faster
I bought wool dryer balls like {these} for the first time about five years ago, hoping I could use them as a substitute for dryer sheets (which really aren’t the best for your fabrics or your health). The truth is that the dryer balls made my laundry a little softer and less staticky but weren’t quite the equal swap-out that I had hoped for. What I was impressed with is how much they helped speed up drying time! I now use them religiously with every load to speed things along. And while they didn’t completely eliminate my use of dryer sheets, I now never use more than ½ sheet per load.
Towels are the one type of load that I’ve been able to totally stop using dryer sheets on since swapping over to wool dryer balls (dryer sheets put a film on your towels and make them less absorbent, so this is definitely a win!). To make my towels come out smelling fresh, I put a few drops of essential oils on my wool balls before adding them to the dryer (be sure to give the oil a little time to soak into the balls first):
4. Organize Your Cleaning Supplies & Keep Only What You Use
When you have time to clean, the last thing you want to be doing is hunting for your supplies, sorting through fifty cans of cleaners to find the one you’re looking for. So pare down your cleaning supplies to only those that you really need and use, and then organize them. It might take you an hour or two to get everything organized, but from that day on, it will save you time every single time you clean!
In our previous home, I used several of {these woven baskets} in the shallow closet between our laundry room and kitchen to organize and store our cleaners. I glued {these mini chalkboards} that I wrote on with {this chalk pen} to the front of each basket to label them (the labels I used were bathroom cleaners, general cleaners, and carpet & floor cleaners):
I’ve since found that labeling baskets with {these clip-on basket labels} is a bit easier.
In our current home, I keep our cleaning supplies on our laundry room shelves in {these blue and white striped bins} labeled with the clip-on labels I mentioned above. I added one of {these plastic bins} to the bottom of each one to make the base more stable.
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I also have a grab-and-go caddy similar to {this one} filled with my most used cleaners so I’m not going back and forth to grab what I need:
5. Go Cordless With Your Vacuum
Cordless vacuums are the biggest game changer! I’m telling you… once you have a cordless vacuum, you will never go back to corded. They previously weren’t as powerful as corded vacuums and didn’t have the best battery life, but all of that has changed. Good cordless vacuums clean just as well as corded ones but are so much easier to use. I get my vacuuming done in about half the time since I don’t have to stop and start with plugging and unplugging my vacuum in various outlets.
And most cordless vacuums can convert to powerful handhelds to make jobs such as vacuuming stairs so much easier:
See my post on Shark vs. Dyson cordless vacuums for all the nitty-gritty details on the best cordless vacuums, but I’ll share a few recommendations. I think the best overall cordless vacuum if you have the budget is {this Dyson v15 Detect}. It’s got great battery life, excellent power, and the light that illuminates hidden dust is a game changer:
It’s super pricey, but it’s a lot less than you’d spend over time having someone clean your house (this is how I justified it to myself 😂).
Want to spend less? I recommend {this Dyson v11 cordless} that’s currently $100 off. It doesn’t have the dust illumination feature but it’s still a great vacuum at a good savings over the v15. I also like Shark cordless vacuums and typically recommend them for the most budget-friendly cordless vacs, but right now the sale price of the Dyson v11 beats the price of my favorite Sharks.
6. Let Degreasers Do the Work for You
Cleaning your range/stovetop is never fun but it’s a lot easier if you let a degreaser do the work for you in loosening up the stuck-on grease! A friend of mine recommended {this Method degreaser} and it works great:
I lift off my grates and spray it on when I first start cleaning my kitchen so it has time to soak in and work its magic. I do the dishes and all of my other kitchen cleaning and then come back to wipe off the degreaser (and all of the gunk that comes with it) at the end. It works well for soap scum too! My grates are dishwasher friendly, so I clean those by throwing them in with my dishes, but if yours aren’t, this degreaser can be used on grates also.
7. Microwave Water + Lemon for Easy Cleaning
One question I get asked a lot is how easy or hard it is to clean our drawer microwave. The answer is that it’s a mixed bag. The part of the microwave that gets the dirtiest (bottom and sides) is actually easier to clean than a normal microwave, while the top is more challenging – you’ve really got to kinda get your head in there :).
But no matter what kind of microwave you have, a tip for getting it clean easier and faster is to microwave a small bowl of water with lemon for a few minutes until it boils and then let it sit in the closed microwave for 10+ minutes.
It steams the hardened junk off the walls of your microwave, so it’s super easy to just wipe it away!
8. Clean Your Machines That Keep Things Clean!
I think we can all agree we wouldn’t want to be without our washing machines or dishwashers that save us so much time. Our dishwasher actually died six months before our kitchen remodel, and I thought I could get by with just handwashing for six months. I lasted all of one week before going online one night and ordering a new one for the quickest delivery date!
It seems a bit counter-intuitive, but you really do need to clean these cleaning machines! Doing so will prolong their lifespan and allow them to perform their best. For our washing machine, I use {these cleaning tablets} once a month:
They’re super simple to use, and getting in the routine of using them monthly (they recommend every two weeks, but every month works for me) will keep you from having to do deep cleans very often. If your washing machine is already super gross, do a deep clean first and then start using these tablets monthly. See my post on how to clean your washing machine for deep cleaning details.
I also use {these cleaning tablets} for our dishwasher and {these cleaning tablets} for our coffee maker.
9. Use Microfiber Cloths Instead of Paper Towels
I’m a HUGE fan of microfiber cloths for all sorts of cleaning. They’re especially great for painted surfaces like my baseboards and cabinets that I don’t want to use cleaners on. I simply use warm water and a microfiber cloth and get a much better clean than you would with paper towels.
The Shaker cabinets that I chose for our current and previous homes are beautiful, but that bottom ledge is a serious dust collector!
I also use microfiber cloths for almost everything else I clean, including countertops, bathrooms, and anywhere I dust. I keep a clean bin of {these microfiber cleaning cloths} in our laundry room along with a dirty bin to place the used ones. Once I’m about to run out, I throw the dirty ones in the wash, and they’re ready to go again! I use them so much that we only buy paper towels about once a year now.
10. Clean With Things That Are Pretty & Smell Amazing
Not everyone is going to understand this one, but if anyone does, it will be you guys who appreciate beauty in your homes like I do. I honestly find that when I have cleaning supplies that are pretty and cleaners that smell good, cleaning is something that I dread less and am willing to do more.
For example, in our kitchen, our sink setup includes {this wood stand} (medium size) holding {these soap pumps},
I’ve ditched all of my ugly blue sponges for {these walnut scrubber sponges} (which are more environmentally friendly too), and I even invested in {this stone drying mat} that looks great when we’re using it and folds neatly away in a drawer with {this corner drying rack for sponges and rags} when we aren’t:
As far as scents go, I’m totally crazy about the smell of Mrs. Meyer’s and Caldrea products. My favorites for this time of year are Caldrea’s Ginger Pomelo scent and Sea Salt Neroli scent.
So there you have it – my ten favorite tips! If you have any tried and true cleaning tips of your own to share, please let us know in the comments!
Thanks as always for stopping by, and enjoy your weekend!
