It’s spring– well so they tell me. Personally, I still have my coat and scarf on, but there is more light about – which is lovely… BUT highlights that my flat is in need of a bit of TLC.
Now, unlike most things in life, I don’t rush spring-cleaning – I do maybe an hour or so every weekend, and then suddenly it’s summer– so I can stop. Cunning eh.
Here are my favourite 5 quick spruce-ups, which can be done in a couple of hours, preferably on a Saturday morning while listening to Graham Norton, that make my home look a bit more loved, and me, feel like I deserve a nice lunch.
1/Buy a bunch of flowers – a vase full of daffodils costs about £2 and looks very spring-like and yellow.
2/ Throw a cleaning tablet in your washing machine and dishwasher (I’ve got ones that work for both) put both on at a high heat wash. While you’re in the kitchen halve a lemon and put it in the fridge, I can’t think why, but I am sure but I read somewhere that it’s a good idea, then have a cup of tea and a biscuit.
Sock hell
3/ Sort out one item of clothing. Socks are a great place to start – they are just so matchy matchy. I have tons of pairs (and a good collection of single ones…keep waiting for their partner to reappear) but the blighters gather together in an orgy-like heap at the bottom of the drawer making it hard to find the pair I want (I am rather particular about my socks).
Now if there’s one thing in life that I aspire to it is neat drawers. I get serious drawer-envy when I come across one of those perfect Pinterest photographs of organised drawers – full of dividers and all colour-coordinated and neat.In my experience (which admittedly is rather limited) drawer dividers are really expensive and can be pretty flimsy so you can imagine my delight when I was in Office Outlet (the shop formerly known as Staples) recently and spotted these rather snazzy boxes – 4 for £5.99.
Rather snazzy boxes
What the hell they are actually for is a mystery but let’s not worry about that – just bin the lids and they are perfect for sock storage. Hey presto an organised sock drawer.
Sock heaven
PLEASE NOTE – Socks have been sorted by both function (sports, cosy, weekend-wear, work-wear) and colour / quality (not black ones, black ones with no bobbly bits, black ones with bobbly bits).
4/ Clean your screens. My office area is prone to being a bit, how shall I put it, manky. The keyboard is home to enough food debris for a light mid-morning snack, so it’s time for its annual tip upside down and violent shake and a quick once over with the Pledge, then I give my screen a wipe (with proper screen cleaner)– and for good measure, I do the TV, ipad, mobile and phone. And they all smells lovely.
5/ Change your bedding and while you are at it replace your winter throw/ bed cover with a lighter, brighter one – you know that one you need to dig out from the old suitcase under the bed – best wash it first.
And a bonus for those of use with a touch of OCD…
Alphabetised herbs
6/Alphabetise your herbs (I pinched this one from my friend Louise) – takes just a minute and you’ll never again mistake your Fennel Seeds for your Cumin.
So there you have it…how to sort of spring clean your house in under 2 hours, without putting on rubber gloves.
Have you any FAST spring cleaning tips– that don’t involve Toilet Duck?
THE END
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great advice and I’ll take up ALL of them Jill!
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Thanx Les x
Love the socks drawer Jill need to invest in those.xx
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Bargain of the year!! x
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Ha! Yeah bargain of the year. Thanx for reading x
What a great post! I am so into spring cleaning right now, this is awesome!
xx
Suzanne
http://www.AskSuzanneBell.com
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Hey Suzanne thanks for popping on. Today is feels more like winter where I am but we can live in hope!! JIll
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And just subscribed to your blog. Jx
Oh God. I’m in the midst of major cleaning at the moment. I’m being ruthless!
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Go girl!! I am waiting till weather improves. It’s too cold to clean 🙂
Oh, my dear Jill, your sock drawer looks like what my and my children’s drawers NEED to look like, only I haven’t quite gotten there yet. Thanks for reminding me that this state of Nirvana will make me feel SO good and look SO pretty for the 5 min or so that it lasts. 🙂 Oh, and you need more herbs. Ours are (loosely) alphabetized, but thanks in part to being married to a foodie, they take up an entire XL drawer lol…
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Haha! Since that post was published my sock drawer has gone back to its crazy tangle of odd socks. Was good while it lasted! Jill x
I’m using a lot of those snazzy boxes to store my odds and ends as we are in the middle of moving house! You must have read my mind as the other night I mentioned to my husband that in our new house I might get an old fashioned spice rack so that I could store my vast collection of herbs and spices alphabetically! 😜
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Oh I do loving having my herbs alphabetised!!! And yes those boxes are so useful. Good luck with the house move and thanks for popping by. Jill x