5 Ways to Help Spring Cleaning Stick

Ahhh, spring, that time when a young man’s fancy turns to love … and a young woman enlists his help in cleaning up the house.

“Spring Cleaning” is as traditional as April showers and May flowers. The weather gets warmer. The days get longer. The windows are open again. Particularly for those of us raised in colder climates, Spring is a time of renewal we find irresistible.

But why is Spring Cleaning so darned necessary, year after year after year?

For many families, a key reason is this: traditional shelving and storage systems are not large enough or flexible enough to accommodate the cycles of our year-to-year lives. Modern homes have large rooms and small closets. Yet, depending on the time of year, we lead indoor lives and outdoor lives … warm-weather and cold-weather lives … active and more stay-inside-where-it’s-warm lives.

Spring Cleaning may always be part of your future but here are 5 ways you might shorten next year’s project to a day instead of a long, tedious week:

1. Add Storage Space to Your Closet

A big part of Spring Cleaning involves reorganizing, and much of that involves seasonal wardrobe changes. One way to keep your closet organized is to increase the storage space.

Have you considered shelving across the bottom, in the often-wasted space beneath your hanging clothes?  Shoes can live on the top of this case, and sliding shelves can make it easier to access the items inside.

2.  Improve Access to Cabinets and Cupboards

Storage space is invaluable in all our homes. Cupboards and cabinets and can contain everything from soup to nuts. Is that why we always need the one thing that’s in the back of the top shelf?

Many of us underutilize the top shelves because they are so hard to reach, but here is a tip. Pulldown shelving could help you make sure the soups stays here and the nuts stay there.

Newly-crafted, old-fashioned Lazy Susans may also add some functionality to under-under-utilized cupboards in your kitchen or utility area.

3.  Make Your Utility Area More Utilitarian

The obvious antidote to Spring Cleaning is to clean your home all year round. If you are lucky enough to have a laundry room or utility area, it is important to make the most of it — making sure all your cleanup tools are convenient and easy to find.

Sliding shelves  and  drawer organizers should help.

There are also a variety of  hamper solutions available.  These, too, may help maximize the space you have available.

4.  Put It In the Trash!

Wastebaskets and trash receptacles do not need to be eyesores. There are a variety of ways we might make them easier to reach and less difficult to look at.  Here are some trash and recycling options.

5.  Reorganize the Garage

Spring Cleaning is not limited to your home itself. Over the course of 3-4 months, any number of things start living where yours car should live.  Broken furniture you intend to repair, children’s toys you haven’t yet given away, pet supplies that didn’t fit in the cupboard …

There are a number of wire accessories that may help you find storage space for the garage.  Sliding shelves  and drawer organizers may be a good way to assemble your parts and tools.

Spring Cleaning may always be part of your life.  But there’s no reason you can’t make it easier day by day, throughout the years in between!