Spring cleaning: A handy checklist to breathe new life into your home

The spring cleaning season is upon us once again – and it’s a seriously busy time for us at SunSkips.

With families in the Suffolk, Norfolk and East Cambridgeshire area hiring skips of all sizes to clear out garages, attics, and gardens for a good spring clean, we’re managing and recycling more waste than ever in March.

But without a plan in place, spring cleaning can sometimes feel like an impossible task and can even work its way down to the bottom of your to-do list until it’s put off altogether.

So before you get started on your clear-out and book your skip, here’s a quick guide for how to get the most out of your spring cleaning.

When should I start spring cleaning?

Spring cleaning is typically started at the beginning of spring, but there isn’t really a set time in which you have to do it.

Clear-outs are often done in spring as it’s a time for renewal and fresh starts, but if your place needs a spring clean in August – just go ahead and do it in August.

You may even want to coordinate your spring clean with a friend or family member to motivate each other and make plans to celebrate the results with a dinner party (a small one, you don’t want another huge clean up on your hands after all the hard work you’re about to put in).

Whenever you decide to give your home an overhaul, you’re going to need a checklist to follow to make sure the job gets done properly (there’s no corner-cutting in spring cleaning).

Before you get started, do a quick supermarket run to make sure you’re stocked up on cleaning supplies like dusters, scrubbing brushes, bleach, etc. and maybe see if you can get any of the less helpful members of the family out of the house for the weekend (young kids with a penchant for impromptu wallpaper art, for example).

Ready? Let’s get that spring clean underway!

Get rid of stuff you don’t need

You’ll have a much harder time cleaning around all your clutter, so it’s best to start with the clear-out.

During the pandemic, it’s been easy to get a little carried away with Amazon purchases for the home to make things a bit more bearable while being stuck indoors. But chances are, there are a few things you bought that no longer seem necessary, or maybe there’s some older stuff that needs to go in order to make way for it.

If you think you can sell any unwanted items on second-hand websites like eBay, then that could be the best way to repurpose your things before the last resort of throwing them away.

Once you have a good idea of how much waste your clear-out is going to generate, consult our handy skip size guide. SunSkips offers a wide range of skips for hire, from a two-yard mini skip to an eight-yard builders’ skip and beyond, and our guide shows you how many bags of rubbish you can expect to fit in each container.

Clear-out checklist

🔲 Book your skip hire in good time
🔲 Clear out the cupboards and wardrobes
🔲 Empty the garage/attic of unwanted items
🔲 Bag up weeds, garden waste and rubbish from the shed
🔲 Clear out the drawer in the kitchen you’ve been quietly stuffing things into when you don’t know what to do with them (you know who you are…)

Get the bigger spring cleaning jobs out of the way

There’s no point starting with vacuuming and dusting, only to have to do it all over again once the deep clean has left a new mess to sort out.

So before you get on with the everyday cleaning that’ll leave your home feeling clean and fresh, it’s best to tackle the messier stuff that doesn’t get cleaned as often.

Pull out the oven (make sure you turn it off and be careful with the tubes if you have a gas oven), fridge/freezer, washing machine, sofa, beds… all the big areas that you can’t normally get to during your routine cleaning, then get down on your hands and knees and start scrubbing!

This is also a good time to start looking into hiring carpet cleaners, taking rugs to the dry cleaners, and ordering new bed linen and towels if they need replacing.

Big spring cleaning job checklist

🔲 Scrub behind the oven, fridge and washing machine
🔲 Clean under the sofa
🔲 Sweep under the beds
🔲 Vacuum behind and under heavy furniture
🔲 Flip the mattress
🔲 Send rugs to the cleaners

Give the kitchen the deep clean it deserves

Are you dreading looking under kitchen units because of what you might find? Well, now’s the time to stop putting it off and get a dustpan and brush under them.

Clean out the drains, the dishwasher, washing machine (there are products you can buy to make this job easier, and you may find the appliances work better than ever).

Particularly tricky areas include the stove and hood where grease accumulates, the microwave, and the backs of cupboards where the odd bit of pasta has managed to escape (you’ll need to get right in there).

SunSkips pro tip: If you’re struggling to get the microwave clean, place a bowl filled with one cup of water, one cup of vinegar and two tablespoons of lemon juice inside. Set it to high and turn on for two minutes. When it’s finished, you should be able to wipe clean with minimal fuss.

And you know that container of mystery leftovers at the back of the freezer? Its day has come… Make a quick meal to replenish your cleaning energy or if it’s past its prime, toss it out!

If you do find you’ve got a lot of food waste, consider starting composting to reduce the amount that goes into the bin in general and use it to bring new life to the garden.

Kitchen cleaning checklist

🔲 Clean out out the fridge
🔲 Empty and defrost the freezer
🔲 Get into the backs of the cupboards
🔲 Give the oven a good scrub
🔲 Unclog the sink
🔲 Organise the drawers
🔲 Disinfect the bins

Get the bathroom looking like new

Admit it, the bathroom has seen better days… But you’re in there every morning and evening, so why not have it looking shiny and new so your showers or baths feel as relaxing as you deserve for them to feel?

Let’s start with the toilet. Of course, you clean the toilet on a regular basis (we hope!) but now’s the time to give it an extra bit of attention to make sure you haven’t missed any of the harder to reach spots.

Old, dirty grouting can make a bathroom seem pretty grotty. You can usually find products that will whiten discoloured grouting in your local supermarket. If you’re not confident with regrouting yourself, get someone in to do it for you. It might set you back, but the results will be well worth it.

Oh, and the Christmas stocking toiletries collecting dust on the shelves: donate them or get rid of them.

Bathroom spring cleaning checklist

🔲 Clean the toilet thoroughly
🔲 Scrub the bathtub and/or shower
🔲 Whiten or refill old grouting
🔲 Descale the showerhead
🔲 Wipe down the tiles
🔲 Disinfect the bin
🔲 Get rid of unwanted toiletries

The finishing touches

You’ve got rid of all the clutter, cleaned the grime from the hard to reach places, and given the kitchen and bathroom the once over – but we’re not quite done yet…

Now the bulk of the work is done, it’s time to polish everything up. This is the part where you really start to see and feel all your hard work paying off.

As cleanliness is more important now than ever before while we’ve still got a pandemic on our hands, it’s a good idea to disinfect all the surfaces after you dust them, then polish any wooden furniture.

You’ve already spent a decent amount of time indoors looking out the window, so get them looking spotless to give your view of the outside world the ultra HD treatment.

Then, finish the job with the final stretch of sweeping, vacuuming and mopping up all the dirt that’s made its way from the recesses of your home onto the floor.

Finishing touch checklist

🔲 Disinfect, dust, and polish surfaces
🔲 Sweep, vacuum and mop floors
🔲 Clean all windows inside and out
🔲 Fluff pillows and freshen fabrics
🔲 Pop a few scented candles out here and there
🔲 Vase up a fresh bouquet of flowers

Start getting into good habits

Hey! You finished your spring cleaning! Good for you!

If you’re especially proud of the results (and why wouldn’t you be?), tag us in your post-spring-clean pics on Instagram (@sunskips_skiphire) or Facebook (@SunSkips) so we can see what you’ve been working on (we’re a skip hire company, we love a good clear-out photo gallery).

And now you’ve got the hang of it, you’ll find the work much easier if you schedule a clear-out and deep clean bi-annually – or even quarterly.

Then, instead of enjoying that feeling of a perfectly clean and organised house once a year, you can enjoy it all year round!

Ready to start your spring clean? Book your skip hire with SunSkips today and get rid of the clutter with a company that sorts and recycles all your domestic waste so you don’t have to.