Imbolc has come and gone, and that means we’re transitioning into the Spring season, my friends.
Yes, warmer weather, sunny days, and flowers will be here before you know it. Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!
Now as much as I value each season, there’s just something about Spring that brings such life into me. It’s as if I can feel my energy rising.
I’m motivated to get to work more rather than resting as I have been all winter. I feel like spending more time outdoors cleaning out all the overgrown mess in the gardens, trimming and pruning plants, and shopping for new things to add to my little spaces. I want a clean slate in my home which means doing a bit more deep cleaning than I normally do to freshen the place up.
Do you feel that way too?
If so, then you’re going to love today’s blog post because today, I’m sharing 10 spring cleaning edits that I personally use to help freshen up the space in my home.
You know the saying, ‘out with the old and in with the new,’ well it’s a bit like that, although not completely! You’ll see what I mean. Let’s get started.
10 Unique Spring Cleaning Edits for your Home
1. Embrace A Doable Cleaning Routine
One of the best things I did in 2020 was to download the Flylady cleaning app on my phone and turn that dang notification button on! It goes off at 9 am every day (except Sundays) and almost everything I need to do to keep my house cleaned in a manageable way is right there. The app is quite customizable, and it helps me keep my house cleaning on a 12-week rotation schedule so everything is getting cleaned (for the most part) every season. I love it!
Now I get it if an app isn’t for you. Perhaps you’ve tried the Flylady app, and it simply didn’t work. Maybe there’s another one out there you can try? Maybe you can come up with your own daily and weekly chore list that rotates however often you want it to.
Spring is the perfect time to start a new cleaning routine and stick with it, especially after the long, cold days of winter when the doors and windows are shut up. It’s so nice to clean out all that old stagnant air, sweep the dust bunnies away, and clean those rarely cleaned places!
If I stick with my cleaning routine, I find that I don’t have as much to do when I feel the urge to spring clean. If I’m regularly wiping fingerprints off the walls, cleaning the chair rails and baseboards, dusting plants and cobwebs, washing or shaking out the curtains, and sweeping and mopping under furniture, there isn’t so much on my plate come spring.
However, there are always the bigger things that I tend to skip like moving the couch and giving it a good clean underneath, shampooing the large rugs throughout my home, or washing the outsides of the windows. Also, wiping the walls in the boy’s rooms! That’s one I tend to forget, as I don’t spend as much time in there.
Speaking of kids — I put mine to work too! Anytime I’m having a cleaning day, I think of one age-appropriate thing that I want each of my boys to do, and that’s their big chore for the day. There’s no reason for them to sit around or be outside playing all day while I work. Oh, no! They contribute to a large amount of the mess, and they can help clean it too. Not only that but it’s good for them to learn to do housework, as they’ll have their own families and homes to be responsible for one day.
2. Turn the Music On
The next of my spring cleaning edits is to turn up the music. Music is always the thing that speaks to me in any given mood.
If I’m happy, it can make me happier. When I’m sad, it has a way of comforting me or helping me to release pent-up emotions. If I want to be motivated to exercise, I need some fast-paced, upbeat music. When I want to feel cozy and peaceful in my home, I need some good ole’ folk music.
So go ahead and head over to Spotify or Pandora and find yourself a playlist that puts you in the mood to clean. Next, play that sucker loud! I like to play music through a Bluetooth speaker so that it not only motivates me, but it motivates the boys as well if they’re doing the chore I’ve given them. Not only that but listening to music while you’re doing a task that isn’t your favorite is a great way to make it a more pleasurable experience. Now I don’t know about you, but cleaning is not my favorite thing to do.
Here’s my favorite spring playlist to have running in the background of my home while I’m cleaning.
3. Pull Out the Natural Cleaners & Essential Oils
The third edit to make your spring cleaning a bit easier is to pull out your favorite natural cleaners and freshen them up with spring scents that feel fresh and clean to you. For me, that’s floral and citrus scents in the spring. My favorite essential oils to use for wellness purposes are Plant Therapy oils!
I’ve shared a lot of posts about spring cleaning and natural cleaners in the past. In this post, I share my favorite all-natural cleaning concentrate that I use to clean almost my entire home. I’ve also shared a spring cleaning post with a lot of my favorite eco-friendly cleaning supplies and natural cleaning recipes in it as well.
4. Fuel Up
When I’m having a cleaning day and doing a lot of intensive tasks that I don’t particularly enjoy, another must-have edit is to fuel up before beginning. This means eating breakfast and having a hot cup of something on hand, whether it’s coffee or hot tea — even mushroom hot chocolate or golden milk!
Cleaning is hard work, and it takes energy. Breakfast should be eaten so you don’t have any blood sugar crashes or start feeling hangry as you go about your day. It’s also really nice to be able to take a break here and there to sip something warm and comforting and then get back to it. I also like to plan to order lunch out (sometimes dinner too) on days where I’m doing intense cleaning since that keeps me from having to worry about stopping, making lunch, and doing a lot of clean up.
5. Let the Light & Fresh Air In
There’s nothing more motivating to me than feeling the warm sun on my skin and taking big belly breaths of fresh air. And guess what? You can experience these very things when you pull back the curtains (or take them down to clean) and open the windows when you’re doing your spring cleaning!
I do most of my spring cleaning on a warm Saturday, so I don’t get too cold with the windows open. If it happens to still be cold in your area, lower the thermostat or let the fire in your stove burn low for just a bit, and then open all the windows to let the fresh air in. All you need is 10 minutes or so to get the air circulating, and then you can close them back up and turn the heat back up.
Fresh, clean air is so good for you and your family, and this quick spring cleaning edit can be a great way to get more of that in your home!
6. Rearrange Your Rooms
A room that always stays the same can get stale when it remains the same for months and months on end. When spring cleaning your home, it’s nice to try rearranging the furniture to give a room a new look. You can also try swapping out a side table or photo for another one or even changing up your centerpieces or the decor on your mantle.
To do this, I like to go shopping in my own home first. I’ll browse rooms that are less seen and pull items to bring out into our living spaces, making them look new, interesting, and fresh. I’ll also head over to our shop where I store extras that aren’t in use at the moment and shop from there as well. I even rearrange my house plants (I’m building quite the collection) as that can really freshen up a space too.
If I can’t find everything I need, chances are, I’ll head into town to one of the many local antique shops to see what’s available and catches my eye at some point in the near future.
It’s also important to know that the rearranging and updating of spaces isn’t limited to the inside of the home either. Oh, no! I love to head out to my front porch and spruce it up a bit. I change up the things I’ve placed next to our front door, I swap out winter garden elements for spring ones, and I remove chairs and throw pillows and replace them with different ones.
7. Out With The Old
I’m not sure what it is about the coming of Spring, but it gives me the desire to get rid of things we’ve accumulated in our home that no longer serve us. It’s like the movie, The Purge, only instead of people, it’s material objects we’ve collected!
No, this is not the easiest one of my spring cleaning edits for me to make. I tend to want to hold on to things and save money, find a way to reuse something we have, or keep things in case someone else needs them later. However, it seems in doing that, we never really get rid of things, and we wind up with a lot of clutter around us.
Clutter is no good. It makes it hard for me to concentrate on other things. I feel less motivated and more overwhelmed when things are everywhere.
When it comes to getting rid of things in my home, I have to walk into a room, look around, and ask myself if there’s anything that no longer serves me well. If something no longer works in the space, is broken, or hasn’t been used in 6-12 months, it really needs to go.
Some things I move to other rooms in my home where it can be more useful. Other times, we take items to the dump, donate them to local thrift stores, or sell them on Facebook marketplace.
8. Create A Honey-Do List
Another one of my favorite unique spring cleaning edits is to create a honey-do list.
We all have things in our homes that need to be fixed, and it’s really easy to let these things slide. Especially the little things! Creating a honey-do list, or a list of all the projects that need to be done in your home, can be a great way to help you feel more organized and up-to-date with getting your home in better working order.
Before I share how I go about doing this, let me explain one very important thing real quick.
One of the biggest differences between Dean and I is that I’m a list maker and he is not. Lists help me remember things and make me feel more organized. I have a path that I can see when I have a list. However, a list to Dean feels like a large weight on his shoulders. Or maybe it’s that he feels that nit-picking everything in our home. I’m not sure. Anyway, I use this type of list to keep me consistently moving forward with my home goals.
So, when I’m creating a honey-do list or a home project list in the spring, I walk around my home (inside and out), and I make a list of EVERYTHING that needs to be done, down to the tiniest things like changing light bulbs. I keep this list in a safe place (where Dean can’t see it!), and the next time I want to work on something, I open my list and pick something doable for us at the moment.
Having this list handy is super helpful when Dean and I are planning our projects for each year. No, I don’t show Dean the list because I don’t want to overwhelm him or make him feel like I’m pressuring him to do all the things on the list. Instead, if he has a free day to do some things around the house, I’ll ask him if he can work on 1 or 2 things from my list. Or, if we finish a project and we’re ready to move onto the next one, I have a running list of things to choose from.
9. Bring In The Green
Another one of my spring cleaning edits that can make a huge impact on your home is to bring in houseplants. Yes, bringing green into your home not only gives it a visual boost, but it can be healthy for you as well!
Plants can go in window seals, sit on shelves or the floor, be placed on tables and plant stands, or even hung from the ceiling in macrame plant hangers! If you’re looking for plants that can improve the quality of the air in your home, here are 15 air-purifying houseplants to choose from.
Now, if you have a brown thumb, don’t worry. You can invest in high-quality silk faux plants to put around your home. Succulents are also easy to grow. Just don’t water them too much! You can also purchase some easy-to-grow plants that aren’t too needy when it comes to light and water to help you get started turning your brown thumb into a green one!
10. Brighten Your Space
The last of my spring cleaning edits is to brighten the spaces of my home.
Dull and dark are not motivating. These things feel more like the winter season to me as they invoke a feeling of inward retreat and rest. Spring is definitely the opposite of that! Spring is a time of outward and upward energy. Brightening the space of your home can help you do just that.
Some things I do to help brighten my home are to dust cobwebs on the ceiling and in doorways, spot clean the walls, and wash my windows. I also wash light fixtures, shine metal elements in my home, and even wax or polish the floors. These are not things that get done on a weekly basis, but when it comes to making a space look clean and bright, these tasks really help!
You can also repaint walls with a fresh coat of paint to give them new life and a brighter appearance as well.
Are You Ready to Make Some Spring Cleaning Edits in Your Home?
If so, I hope this list has helped you to feel encouraged and motivated to freshen up your space this season.
Please know that you do not need to do all of these things at once. Spring cleaning doesn’t happen in a day. It can take a week or more to get all of your spring cleaning done. My advice to you would be to take it slow, be intentional, and keep at it until your space feels like it’s had a rebirth, just as spring is a rebirth for nature.
Happy spring cleaning, friends!
Love and light,
Meagan