This Is the Last Thing You Should Do When Spring Cleaning
You spring cleaned! You soaked and scrubbed your oven racks, washed the shelves in your fridge, went through your pantry, and gave everything the deepest clean ever. Yay, you!
Hopefully you saved this one thing for last: the floors.
“When you’re cleaning, everything gets dumped on the floors — from crumbs on the counters to dust flying around — so there’s just no point in cleaning them any earlier in the process,” says Melissa Maker, author of Clean My Space.
As a general rule, Maker and other experts suggest cleaning any room from top to bottom, so that the dust settles downward as you go. For example, start with your upper cabinets (clean the tops if there’s space between them and the ceiling, wipe down the shelves, and sort through the clutter), then tackle your countertops (take everything off and give them a thorough scrub), and then move on to your lower cabinets. Work through the room in a clockwise direction, to make sure you don’t repeat spots.
Then do your floors last!
Also, be realistic about how much you can get done in the time you’ve allotted. If you’ve already spent all day cleaning and you’re running out of steam, this is not the time to tackle the grout between your floor tiles. “You have to ask yourself, ‘Am I really willing to make this big time investment? Or am I going to end up with half a clean floor that makes the other half look really dirty?'” Maker points out. The solution — for now — might just be a good sweeping until you have more time (read: energy) for another cleaning session.