Cleaning tricks for your house


Is it just us, or does it feel like as soon as you have finished cleaning, things are suddenly messy again? You just get one room looking great, and in that time, another has become utter carnage! Here are some tips and tricks that will help make cleaning your home a doddle!

Use a multi-purpose cleaner

You don’t always need a different cleaner for every job. This is a marketing ploy to get you to buy more products, and leaves you with a full cupboard and pretty tired from going backward and forward to change bottles! Of course, some cleaners are unsuitable for specific materials or surfaces, but if you use an all-purpose cleaner, you can generally get away with far fewer bottles. Make your own with  baking soda and warm water – you can use this on your counters and appliances, and it’s cheap and easy to make!

Coloring marks

If you’ve got marker stains on your lovely wooden table (thanks, kids!), you can simply use toothpaste and a little bit of elbow grease to remove the marks. For coloring that has been done on the walls, dampen a sponge, sprinkle on some baking soda and scrub lightly.

Cleaning tricks for your house

Make your kitchen more manageable

With so much that goes on in the space, it’s no surprise that the kitchen can be one of the hardest places to clean. When you are cleaning the surfaces, start on the right-hand side of the stove. Put your knobs, drip pans and other removable parts in hot soapy water, and leave to soak while you move clockwise around the room, cleaning all the surfaces. The stove is usually the dirtiest part of the kitchen so by leaving it last you will avoid spreading it around and also give your removable parts time to soak. Make life easier for yourself by lining the bottom of your oven with a nonstick oven liner which can be wiped with a paper towel, or put in the dishwasher to be reused and save you hours of scrubbing.

Start at the top

When cleaning a room, start at the very top with dusting and wiping, and make sweeping or vacuuming the last thing you do, so that you can catch any crumbs, dust or debris that falls on the floor when you are cleaning the rest of the room. This should avoid the need for you to sweep or vacuum several times while doing one room!

Remove the stench

The garbage disposal is often the number one source of bad smells in a kitchen, and it can seem impossible to get rid of it. However, all you need to do is run a few lemon rinds through it, and then a bit of cold water and those stinks will be gone, leaving you with a much fresher kitchen in minutes. For those smelly pet-related spaces, such as the dog bed, sprinkle some baking soda onto the surface, leave it for fifteen minutes to soak up the stench, and then vacuum it up.
Cleaning isn’t fun, but it doesn’t have to be too complicated either. If you follow these tips and tricks, you should be able to make a dent in that cleaning routine, or failing that, maybe it’s time to hire a cleaner?!

Cleaning tricks for your house

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