Spring cleaning hallways

Your hallway & back door, and all hallways throughout the house can receive this specialized treatment.


Ceiling & corners

Remove cobwebs from ceiling and corners

Dust and wash light fixtures and vents (ceiling, walls)

Change light bulbs where required


Closet

Hanger racks, rods and shelving cleaned (all items removed, wiped and replaced)
Clean tracks of sliding doors, clean closet doors
Clean and store seasonal items (hats, gloves, scarves, coats, gear and winter accessories)
Change out seasonal closet items (i.e. shoes, coats, umbrellas)
Remove all shoes, boxes and baskets from front hall closet
Sort through items (keep, donate, discard)

Walls, windows & doors
Light switch plates, door knobs and power outlets wiped (points of contact)
Wipe door, door frame, door threshold
Dust and clean the frame and glass of all frames
Spot clean walls as required to remove marks and fingerprints
Shades, curtains, blinds, drapes, valences washed and/or dusted
Wipe window sills, tracks and frames
Clean and/or repair window screens and wash window panes
Furniture & accessories
Dust accessories and clean artificial flowers, etc.
Clean hallways and entryway furniture including underneath and behind (where possible)
Sort through junk drawers/pile/bowl (keep, donate, discard), clean the drawer/bowl and replace all kept items neatly

To clean a silk plant

Step 1 – take it outside

Dust is going to fly around and re-settle during this process; better to let Mother Nature deal with it than you spending time vacuuming it up (I’m all about saving time here).

Step 2 – different strokes 

Grab yourself a clean soft-bristle paint brush and give your plant a quick dusting, leaf by leaf. To give you an idea of timing, this technique will take about 10 minutes to clean a plant. As with all dusting, I recommend you start at the top of the plant and work your way to the bottom so that dust does not re-settle on a cleaned area. I find the paint brush is better than a feather duster (I’m not really a fan of them) because it can get into smaller crevices and more effectivley moves dust off the leaf. You can brush the branches and trunk at this time as well, working your way down from top to bottom, of course.


When the leaves are dusted, brush the base of the plant clean of any dust too.


Note: some people talk about taking a damp cloth and wiping the leaves down, one by one. I’d caution against this because water (or any liquid) can deform the shape of the beautifully crafted plant and you wouldn’t want that (these things don’t come cheap). If you use a cleaning product, the colour could run too. Not pretty.
What about silk flowers?


Well, silk flowers can be treated the same way we would clean a silk plant. In my worldly travels I’ve heard of the salt cleaning technique. Basically, it works by adding artificial flowers to a bag filled with table salt (perhaps a cup of it) and to clean the flowers, one simply shakes the bag (closed) and let the salt shake the dust off the flowers. Full disclosure, I have not tried this method and it sounds like it could be cumbersome for taller stemmed flowers. I wanted to mention it to leave an alternative here for those interested, but again, can’t say I’ve had an experience with the technique.


I have tried another technique though; dishwashing silk flowers. In theory, almost any plastic item be cleaned in the dishwasher so long as it is placed on the top rack (so that it doesn’t melt) and is washed without detergent. I had heard of this working and decided to put it to the test with some pretty deep purple Dahlias that I had from Wilkinsons. So, my expectation was that they would come out clean and they certainly did. However, the unexpected byproduct of this was that the flowers actually dyed the lining of my dishwasher. Not hot at all, let me tell you. Seeing that my house is somewhat of a test lab, I’ve since let it go and don’t pay too much attention to my slightly purple upper rack of the dishwasher. Having that experience, I don’t know how strongly I recommend that method either. Stick with the paintbrush!

Floor
Clean baseboards
Shake out and vacuum mats, runners and rugs (store away if necessary)
Closet floor cleaned (leave shoes out until this is completed, replace before finalizing floors)
Clean floors