Bay Meadows

The sun is shining and spring is here! Get ready to freshen your home and give the season the welcome it deserves. We’ve rounded up some tips that will make your spring cleaning a breeze, as well as safe.

Create A Checklist: Break down your areas to clean into sections, then break down each section into individual tasks that need accomplishing in each room. Once you have a checklist, estimate how much time it will take you to accomplish each task and give yourself a reasonable schedule to finish.

Mix Up Green Cleaners: Using just a handful of natural ingredients — vinegar, salt, lemon juice, and baking soda –can help you make your home squeaky clean—and green. Baking soda can be used to clean almost anything, mix in a little warm water and you’ve got yourself an all-purpose cleaner. Here are a few more recipes for natural household cleaners.

Use Reusable Cloths. Skip the one-use paper towels and use a rag or old t-shirt that you can wash and use again. You can use microfiber cloths that sanitize and clean floors, counters, glass and tile when wet, and eliminate the need for other cleaning products.

Open and Clean the Windows: Keeping windows open as often as possible allows fresh air in. This is especially important when cleaning your home. Clean those open windows by combining 2 teaspoons of vinegar with 1 quart of warm water in a spray bottle.

Conquer The Kitchen: A kitchen deep clean can be extensive, try using a checklist to clean and organize from top to bottom. You can make your sink sparkle naturally in just a few easy steps. Discover the best way to clean a stainless steel, ceramic or enamel/porcelain sink!

Freshen Up Carpets: Baking soda not only removes those strange smells coming from your fridge, it’s also a great odor-eliminator for your carpet. Sprinkle baking soda onto your carpets, sweep it around for a bit and then vacuum it up.

Rest Easy: Create a natural bedroom with non-toxic products. Whether you choose wool or organic cotton materials, these natural fibers will help you relax with ease. Pottery Barn’s Organic Essential Blanket is made of premium organic cotton fibers combed for softness, then yarn dyed and Jacquard woven to create a cozy, lightweight blanket. Use natural organic fibers such as cotton, linen or bamboo to showcase an eco-design and a green lifestyle.

Flip Your Mattress: Not all mattresses are designed to be flipped, but if yours is, it’s good to flip it twice a year. Just like carpet, you can use the baking soda trick on your mattress to absorb oils and odors.

Ditch the Winter Wardrobe: Clean out your seasonal clothes as soon as that season has ended. Ditch the things you haven’t worn in a year and vow to put away your clean laundry each week.

Breath of Fresh Air: Try cooking up a combination of cinnamon and oranges or cloves and apples to bring natural scents into your home. You can also add a few drops of essential oils. Also, plants are good for filtering interior air—like the Chinese evergreen that can help filter out a variety of air pollutants. Nothing beats the smell of fresh herbs sprouting up right in your home. Indoor Herb Gardens are easy to grow and use all around the house.

Put Your Things in Storage: You can make your life greener and easier as well by investing in storage space. Spring cleaning can be enough of a chore when you have to work around a houseful of possessions that you may not use regularly. By putting your things in storage, you free up space in your home and you also make your spring cleaning a little bit easier on you and your family. How else can storage make your life easier? Just check out the blog by Extra Space Storage, Top 10 Ways Storage Can Get You to a Better Place.

By freeing up space in your home, you ease your worries about clutter and open the possibility that you could even telecommute from home for your employer. Telecommuting has long been recognized as the ideal green solution for people who want to minimize their impact on the environment, but also earn an income for their families. However, to telecommute effectively, you need a clean and organized house to do so.

Storage space allows you to put away things that you may not use regularly, such as sporting gear, decorations, clothing, and even office equipment. You will be left with a house that is clean and organized and much easier to maintain long after your green spring cleaning ends.

Be Proactive: It’s always easier to keep on top of things than to try to catch up every spring.

– Keep the sidewalk out of your home with a good doormat or a shoeless house policy.

– Decorate an easy-clean home with cleanability in mind. Create spaces that are cleaner, organized and require fewer substances to maintain.

– Mount a rack inside your front entry closet door and use it to stop the clutter at the door.

– Spend 15 minutes each evening focusing on organizing one area that collects clutter.

The possibilities to take easy, eco-friendly steps in your everyday life are endless. Get creative and add a little more green in your life to reduce your carbon footprint and feel good about helping yourself and the Earth.

Bay Meadows is a family-friendly neighborhood with lots of green space to enjoy all year long. Whether its growing your own vegetables in a gorgeous community garden with expert guidance, playing a game of pick-up basketball after work, team building over bocce and beers, or picnicking with friends and family on warm summer nights for Movies in the Meadow, there’s no shortage of green space to explore. If you have little ones, don’t miss Momdays on Mondays in Paddock Park!