Much of the nation has been snowed in for the first half of the month, but that’s no reason to avoid the inevitable spring cleaning. In fact, if you take advantage of that “indoor” time to declutter, you’ll get a jump on the season. “There is no reason to start deep-cleaning if you are surrounded by clutter,” says The Simply Organized Home. “There is no point in cleaning things that you don’t need, use, or love.” Sort that extra stuff into boxes and bags for ClothingDonations.org to pick up, and you’ll clean a clutter-free environment when the time comes.
Tag: spring cleaning
Is It Already Too Late to Spring-Clean?
Can you believe that spring started only a couple of months ago? Back then, it seemed like there was all kinds of time to sort through the junk and spring-clean the house, but with Mother’s Day over, summer will be here before you know it. And with Memorial Day just around the corner as the “official” start of summer, there isn’t much time left to accomplish important tasks like these.
But there’s really no bad time to spring-clean. For example, SpringCleaning365.com suggests that you dedicate just five to 15 minutes per day, every day of the year, to specific cleaning and organizing tasks; by the end of the year, your life will be less cluttered and less stressful. For May, the blog suggests (among other things) dedicating an entire week to a master closet purge and a thorough cleanup of digital photos.
While digital photos can undoubtedly benefit from better organization, that closet purge will be good for more than your own mental health and well-being. After you set the winter clothing aside for storage, donate the extra garments you no longer need to ClothingDonations.org, which will distribute them to local resale stores and dedicate the proceeds to veterans’ programs.
Cosmopolitan offers a complete how-to on performing a closet purge. It says to get rid of “clone” clothing (stuff that you have multiple other and better versions of), as well as the things you bought but never wore. Also get rid of “other you” clothing, the magazine says—things you last wore years ago, when you were skinnier/heavier/younger/trendier than you are right now.
You will find “junk” during a closet purge—stuff that’s too tattered or stained to pass along to friends, relatives or ClothingDonations.org. Donate these items—at least the softer, more absorbent ones—to the rag bag. That way, they can help you with the next step in your spring-cleaning regimen: wiping down and scouring the various parts of your home that tend to collect dirt and grime.
No matter what the calendar says, it’s never too late to declutter and spring-clean!
Easy Plantings for the Patio
Your backyard or patio can be a great place to relax and entertain in the warmer months with a few well-placed plantings, a little bit of mood lighting, and a comfortable place to sit. You don’t have to have a green thumb to grow many climbing vines and hardy plants such as Russian sage, according to LoveYourLandscape.org; you can even use some of the junk you clear out of your closets while spring cleaning creatively as planters and outdoor accents.
Make Your Garden Grow
Over the Easter holiday or spring break, you may have noticed that things have started to bloom. Trees are budding, and spring flowers are popping up from the ground. And now that the threat of a frost has finally passed for most locations in the United States, it’s time to plant a garden you can enjoy throughout the year.
First, you’ll need to spring-clean your yard and garden plots. Clip any dead foliage or withered tree branches, and rake the thatch from your lawn. Doing so gives new branches and shoots the room to grow and flourish, according to the EarthEasy sustainable living blog, and you need to clear a path before things can start to grow in earnest.
Then comes the fun part: planting seeds and seedlings. Depending on your space, climate and needs, you might plant containers for a balcony, a sculptured perennial garden that has new blooms every month, or a raised vegetable garden—or all of the above! Better Homes & Gardens offers a plan for virtually every situation, space and skill level.
If you’re new to gardening and on a budget, there’s no better place to shop than at the local thrift. Donations to ClothingDonations.org include lightly-used trowels and other tools, decorative clay pots and containers, and other garden items. When they’re resold, the money goes toward helping fund veterans’ programs throughout the country.
Early spring is the best time to plant new trees and shrubs. It’s also a great time to see hardy flowers such as pansies, irises, daffodils, tulips and hydrangeas come up. If you missed the window to plant early-spring flowers, get summery perennials such as day lilies, black-eyed Susans and roses into the ground, and start preparing your pots for herbs and annuals.
If you want to eat fresh produce from your own victory garden (as many older veterans might remember their families doing during WWII), plant crops such as lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, raspberries and peas early in the season. RealFarmacy offers a zone-by-zone list of late-April garden to-dos that can help establish a productive vegetable garden.
As with spring cleaning, the keys to a good garden are organization and elbow grease. When you figure what you want your outdoor space to look like, it will be easy to make the time and space needed to plant and cultivate the flowers, shrubs and vegetables you want. Get started now, and you’ll be able to enjoy your garden all summer long.
Spring Is Here! It’s Time to Clean
Spring has finally sprung! Yesterday—in the Northern Hemisphere, at least—the vernal equinox marked the point at which day and night last roughly 12 hours each, and also the beginning of the growing season.
But spring has a more universal meaning for most busy households in the United States. Not only is it time to emerge from a state of relative hibernation, it’s also a time to make a new start in the ongoing effort keep our homes and lives clean and organized.
Spring cleaning can be a big job, though, and there are tons of ways to tackle it. The Oprah Network offers a single-day checklist to ensure that every part of your home is dusted and sanitized without ruining an entire weekend.
The methodical approach goes from bathrooms to bedrooms to kitchen to family room, using a top-to-bottom strategy to ensure dust won’t re-attach itself to surfaces for a while. Bonus: The final step in this 9-to-5 plan is ordering a pizza for dinner.
Reader’s Digest takes the top-down approach a step further in “10 Ways to Spring Clean Like a Pro,” starting on the top floor and working downward. Shedding excess stuff is a vital step in the plan: “Clear out your junk!” the story says. “If you haven’t used it in the past year, you don’t need it.”
Then, the story says, hold a yard sale or donate lightly-used clothing, books and household goods to charity. To make this stage of the spring-cleaning process even simpler, point your browser to ClothingDonations.org and request a pickup.
Spring cleaning won’t just make your home fresher and more inviting, says Britain’s Spring Cleaning Week site—it will also help you feel more motivated and liberated. “Removing the gunk, ensuring every surface is shiny and every room is filled with cold, fresh air can change you as a person,” the site says.
You may even feel more energized and satisfied once spring cleaning is complete, the site adds. And anyone who has tackled the job in the past knows the sense of satisfaction that a job well done can create.
“The subconscious exercise that takes place when you clean helps release endorphins, therefore renewing your physical self by the end of the day,” the site says. “Going through with the spring clean can give you the satisfaction and thrill of having achieved something.”
There’s no reason to put off that seasonal cleaning and organizing any longer. Get started immediately, and you’ll be finished before you know it. The new you will thank you later.