
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!
Author
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…
Author
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