Cleaning Tips for Worry-Free Holidays
Returning home to a clean house with your decorations up lets you enjoy the holiday season to the fullest. If you don’t clean up before the holidays start, you’ll feel the stress. Before Thanksgiving is an ideal time to prepare your home. When you know how to clean for the holidays, you can have fun putting up your decorations the day after you give thanks.
Preparing for the Holiday Gatherings
Using a Powerful Dishwasher Detergent
Save time by using a powerful dishwasher detergent to wash your dishes. You don’t need to soak and scrub your dishes if you use the right dishwasher detergent, and you don’t need a pre-rinse to get your dishes sparkling clean.
Washing and Dusting in Advance
If you have special dishes for the holidays, then you’ll want to make sure they haven’t collected dust. Wash them in advance so that you don’t feel stressed with an unexpected task on the holiday. Dust your furniture and other surfaces, too, so they’ll be shining when your holiday guests arrive.
Tips for Keeping Up With Cleaning
Good maintenance practices prevent clutter and excessive dirtiness to make cleaning for the holidays easier on you. Habits to help you keep up with cleaning include:
- Put items back in their correct place after using them.
- Never leave dishes in the sink.
- Don’t wear shoes in the house.
- Create a cleaning schedule.
- Clean while you cook.
- Immediately clean up spills and dribbles.
- Never let wet laundry sit in the washer.
- Fold clean laundry right away.
You can set up a shoe rack near your front door so that you can neatly store footwear after taking it off. Make sure to have guests take off their shoes and boots when they enter your home, too. Your floors will stay cleaner when no one tracks dirt across them.
There are plenty of storage solutions to prevent clutter. If you need more storage space in the living room, install shelves or add an ottoman that has room to store items inside.
Over-the-door organizers provide more storage space in closets and bathrooms. Linen storage bags help you neatly store comforters and blankets.
Spending a little time cleaning every day lets you feel good about keeping a tidy home and avoid frantic cleaning sessions before guests come over. Creating a schedule ensures that you stay on track with your daily cleaning. You may also find it helpful to create a holiday cleaning checklist. It can help you tackle your tasks more strategically, and you’ll love checking off each chore.
If you have a moment while you’re cooking, cleaning some of the dishes, pots, and pans as you go along helps you save time and keep a tidier kitchen. Wipe up spills and crumbs in the moment, too. It only takes a few seconds to do, and you won’t need to tackle solidified stains a week later.
Efficient Post-Holiday Cleaning
After the holiday, there’s some extra cleaning to do because of gift wrappings, cookware and decorations. There is an efficient way of cleaning up after the holidays so that it’s not such a stressful task. Helpful holiday home cleaning tips include:
Organizing Gift Wrappings and Packaging
Not all paper, plastic and foam items are recyclable, so you should check the rules of your local recycling center to know what they accept. On the items themselves, you can find a symbol that tells you what type of material it is, so you can check if it’s recyclable where you live.
Gift wrap that’s shiny or laminated isn’t recyclable. You also can’t recycle wrap that has glitter, plastic decorations or non-paper additives. Tape isn’t recyclable, so you need to remove that as well. You may decide that it’s best to just throw out some of the gift wrap. For example, thin wrapping paper doesn’t have many fibers in it that are worth recycling.
Some recycling centers accept tissue paper. If yours doesn’t, you could compost it to avoid throwing it out. Setting up a composting bin is easy with a little advice from the experts at True Value.
Cleaning and Storing Holiday Decorations
Cleaning
Use a soft, dry paint brush to brush dust off of ornaments before storing them. If you’re having trouble getting dirt off of a glittery ornament, use a can of low-pressure compressed air. Never wet a glitter ornament because the liquid will cause the glitter to fall off. Compressed air can remove dust from wooden ornaments, too. Follow up with a microfiber cloth to keep them in good condition.
Use a paint brush to remove dust from glass ornaments, then clean them with glass cleaner. Removing the dust first will prevent scratches. You can use compressed air to blow dust away from metal ornaments. Then, clean them with a microfiber cloth. A lint roller will remove pet hair and dust from fabric ornaments. If a stain has damaged the ornament, you can use a stain remover pen. Microfiber cloths are all you need for cleaning painted ornaments.
Storing
Store a faux Christmas tree in the box it came in or a canvas bag to protect it. Use cord storage reels to prevent your string lights from becoming tangled. If you don’t have a lot of string lights, you could wrap each string around a piece of cardboard, then store it in a gallon-size plastic bag. Then, place all your string lights in one labeled container. If you have lights for different holidays, use a separate container for each one.
Large outdoor decorations that you can’t fit into a storage bin can go on an adjustable storage rack in your garage or shed. Store small outdoor accessories, including flattened inflatables, together in storage bins.
Because indoor decorations aren’t designed to withstand extreme weather, you’ll need to store them indoors or in weathertight containers. Wrap ornaments and other small decorations in bubble wrap or tissue paper for an extra layer of protection. Ornaments can otherwise go into divided storage bins.
Store wrapping paper rolls horizontally where they won’t receive sunlight; this will prevent wrinkles and fading. If you don’t have a lot of rolls, then you can keep them in the same bin. You can store ribbons, bows and tape with your wrapping paper.
Deep Cleaning Strategies
When you’re deep cleaning your home, make sure that you use a carpet cleaner to clean all the way down to the fibers. Vacuuming isn’t enough to thoroughly clean the carpet.
A steam cleaner can deep clean upholstery, as long as it’s made of a fabric that can be steam cleaned. You can rent a steam cleaner if you prefer to not buy one.
Use a telescoping microfiber wand to clean the ceilings. Don’t forget the corners where cobwebs tend to form. After dusting the ceiling fans, coat them with a dust repellent to keep them looking clean longer.
You can clean light fixtures with an isopropyl alcohol-distilled water solution of 1:4. The fixtures need to be off before you spray them. Dry them with a cloth after cleaning.
Remember to clean your washing machine, too. Bacteria can grow inside it when you don’t deep clean it at least once a year.
Get All You Need for Your Holiday Cleaning at True Value!
Maintaining a clean home throughout the year makes holiday cleaning and preparing less stressful and time-consuming. Once you learn the most efficient ways of staying on top of home cleanliness, it’s easy to do. Then you can have guests over whenever you want without losing sleep to clean house. Find a True Value near you to buy the supplies you need to keep your home holiday clean all year long.