Cleaning Your Home, the Natural Way
Many cleaners are sold that claim to sanitize and clean your home. Some chemical cleaners can be health hazards and are not safe to use without gloves and ventilation like oven cleaners. But some cleaners are perfectly safe to use to clean your home. There are also many very nice natural cleaners that will clean you home as well. Vinegar and baking soda are great natural cleaners to clean your home with. Vinegar can be used on windows, appliances and bathrooms. You can put vinegar in a spray bottle to spray the vinegar where to want it. Baking soda is good to use when you need an abrasive to clean dirty places like when you scrub out a sink or bathtub. You can put baking soda in a sugar shaker to help apply the baking soda where you want it.
Before you start to clean your home it is important to remove the clutter that we seem to accumulate. Clutter can be hard to clean around so it is best to clean it up. Take away anything you haven’t used in the last year. Store away the things you can part with and get rid of the things you can part with. A Good Will Store or a thrift sale are a good places to take all the unwanted items you have cluttering your home. After you have uncluttered you home then it is time to clean your home.
When you clean your home you should always start from the top and work your way down. Start at the ceilings. Take a broom, vacuum or mop and clean all the cob webs off of the ceilings in the rooms of your home. Don’t forget the stairwells and closet ceilings.
Next it is time to dust. Choose a nice soft clothe and start at the top. Dust the tops of windows and doors. Wash the things that require washing like light fixtures and cabinets. Don’t forget the light switches when you clean. Start in one room and work your way room by room through your home. Wash the windows as well and the appliances too. A solution of half vinegar and half water is a good mixture to wash windows and appliances with. Take down curtains and wash them or just shake them out well. Sofa pillows, throw rugs and blankets may need to be shaken out or even washed if they are really dirty. Textiles can be dust collectors so it is important to take the time to shake them out including the stuffed animals in the home.
Spend extra time in the kitchen and bathroom since these rooms tend to get dirtier then other rooms do. You can clean your bathroom and kitchen fixtures with vinegar. If you need to use some abrasives to clean really dirty sinks or tubs you can use baking soda. Drains can be cleaned by shaking some baking soda down them and then pouring vinegar down the drain. Watch out for the reaction that baking soda and vinegar mixed together can do. Mirrors can be cleaned with vinegar and a clean soft rag.
After you have dusted everything then you can concentrate on cleaning the floors of your home. Linoleum and tile floors can be washed with hot water with some vinegar mixed in. You can get down on your hands and knees or you can use a mop to clean floors. Carpet can be vacuumed unless it is really dirty then you may want to shampoo your carpets. Wood, cement or stone floors can be cleaned with a floor duster or washed with warm water. Always clean the floors last as dust and dirt will fall on the floor as you clean other parts of the room.
Last but not least sweep off the entryway into your home. That way less dirt will be tracked into your home from the outside and the inside of your home will stay cleaner longer.
