“There’s no place like home.” This popular saying is often used to put the spotlight on how loved ones staying together creates a beautiful atmosphere for everyone. However, you would agree that every home also has a unique flair, furniture, or gadgets that family members already view as part of what makes up the home.
What often gets ignored, though, is the effort that goes into learning how to clean home surroundings and maintain a clean and healthy environment for everyone.
Often considered a ‘Mom’ task, home cleaning requires a lot of time and dedication, including not getting tired of picking up misplaced articles in different home corners.
If you handle cleaning for your home, you likely may be searching for home cleaning tips to make your house look like new all the time.
In this article, we’ll share some of the best home cleaning tips to help you achieve the results you desire, and also go over some home cleaning benefits to keep in mind.
The information we share herein also applies even when you hire home cleaning services to help put your home in shape. Knowing them will allow you to save costs and understand your specific cleaning needs.
20 Best Home Cleaning Tips To Make Your House Look Like New
1. Refresh The Shower Curtain
Shower curtains accumulate dirt from mold, mildew, and soap scum. Often, one may ignore the dirt build-up unintentionally or simply because of procrastination.
However, if you’re looking to get instant home cleaning benefits and make your house look new, starting from your bathroom (a frequently used section of the home), is an excellent idea. So, it’s time to take those shower curtains off the rings and clean them.
Not sure how to do it?
Well, most shower curtains can be cleaned with a washing machine filled with warm or hot water. Add the regular amount of detergent and mix with baking soda and wash at the highest level.
At the rinse stage, add a cup of distilled white vinegar and hang the curtain to dry after a full spin cycle. You should have a refreshed shower curtain at the end of the process, giving your bathroom a deserved facelift.
2. Disinfect Kitchen Sponges
Kitchen sponges are useful for cleaning countertops, dishes, and other utensils. What is often less discussed is that these sponges can spread millions of bacteria around the home because it is not cleaned correctly.
A study by Scientific Reports suggests that kitchen sponges have the potential to “collect and spread bacteria with a probable pathogenic potential,” making it a hotspot for bacteria in some kitchen environments.
Interestingly, there is not so much that you need to do to disinfect your kitchen sponge. A standard method is microwaving damp sponges for 90 minutes and with full power.
Doing so could literally destroy up to 99% of bacteria and is recommended at least once in a week for regularly used kitchen sponges.
3. Wipe-out Wall Doodles
If you have kids in your household, you will most likely have wall doodles resulting from kids using your painted walls to display their artistic efforts. But you don’t need to wait until they’re all grown up before you start looking for a solution.
A simple home cleaning tip to wipe out wall doodles is to sprinkle a damp sponge with baking soda and scrub affected areas lightly. This exercise will make your house look new, at least until the artists show up again!
Alternatively, you can commit to repainting walls periodically to wipe our doodles to give the entire room a facelift.
4. Freshen Fuzzy and Musty Towels
A towel is one of the most used household fabrics. Constant use and hard water could result in an accumulation of minerals that, in turn, make towels scratchy and uncomfortable for continued usage.
You can get rid of these deposits by washing the towels using boiling water, and then add a cup of Ammonia to soften the fabric once again.
On the other hand, a towel can become musty and speckled if it is not exposed to sufficient sunlight. Brush the towel to remove mildew spores and sundry the material for three to four hours.
Next, pre-soak the material using water and bleach solution before tossing into the washing machine for a full spin.
5. Get Rid of Pet Stinks and Furs
Pet owners agree that these friends are great companions and can bring you a rare kind of joy. Simultaneously, dealing with pet odors and furs presents a challenge, hence its inclusion in this list of home cleaning tips.
Although dealing with pet stinks and furs is a daily tussle, here are some practical ways to handle it:
- Eliminate the odor from soft, cozy surfaces where your pet loves to hang around. Sprinkle these surfaces with baking soda and vacuum.
- For more severe odors, use a solution of vinegar and water to spray on carpets, floors, and other pet surfaces.
- Regularly scoop pet fur with damp gloves or use a soft-bristled brush.
- Wash all the items regularly used by your pet.
At other times, the solution to pet order is to bath the pet regularly either at home or with a pet groomer.
6. Wipe-Out Coffee Stains From Mugs and Carafe
If coffee stains have made your ceramic mugs or carafe appear less attractive, you can do away with such seemingly stubborn stains as part of your next cleaning exercise.
The simplest way to achieve that is by adding a small quantity of your regular dish soap and then some baking soda to increase abrasion.
7. Sanitize Your Devices
Electronic devices are very prone to dirt, dust, and some bacteria. The reason is that you are almost always touching them, especially your smartphones, and this frequent touching can cause it to gather a lot of dirt in the process.
A study by the scientists at the University of Arizona has shown that your smartphone carries ten times more bacteria than your toilet seat. You heard that right. Your cell phone is dirtier than your toilet seat!! And this is because they are often left out in the cleaning processes.
Your electronic devices, including your PCs, game consoles and controllers, smartwatches, phones and tablets, and even your headphones and earphones, need to be cleaned as often as possible to prevent picking up some bacteria that make you sick.
Of course, you would not have to immerse the devices in water for it to be clean, but there are certain things that you can use to clean them. It is often best to wipe them with a slightly damp microfiber cloth and use cotton swabs to clean areas that you can not get to with the fabric.
Avoid using liquid cleaning sprays as they are difficult to control and tend to run into the device and cause much damage. You also need to avoid harsh chemicals that are used in day-to-day cleaning. The best option is to read up on how to clean your devices without damaging them safely.
8. Remove Stains from Cutting Boards
The cutting boards are one of the most reached for tools in the kitchen. They are used to handle a lot of food items, and the constant contact with sharp knives creates splits and scrapes on the surface of the board, thus, making it a perfect habitat for germs to breed.
Your cutting boards need to be cleaned as often as possible, irrespective of the cutting board that you are using. Stains on the board are inevitable; therefore, you must know the proper way to get rid of them depending on your cutting board’s surface.
Plastic cutting boards are among the most common types of the board found and are very easy to get stained, especially if you are using bright-colored ones. You can remove stains from a plastic cutting board by making a paste with four parts hydrogen peroxide, 1 part dish soap, and two parts baking soda.
Apply the paste on the board and allow it to sit for a couple of hours. This will considerably lighten up the stain. But, if the stains are adamant about removing, you can consider buying a new board and take care to clean it as often as possible to avoid stains that will later prove very difficult to remove.
9. Let Your Blender Clean Itself
Blenders are very handy tools in the kitchen. However, the blenders can become dirty pretty quickly with dried up residues from smoothies, soups, and many more.
The task of scrubbing off the stains and reaching between the blades with a scrubbing brush and hot water is one of the most frustrating dishwashing tasks.
Interestingly, you can make your blender wash. You just need to fill the blender half-way with warm water, add a few drops of dish soap and turn on the blender for about 30 seconds to 1 minute.
Once it is complete, pour out the contents and rinse. Your blender will be even cleaner than when you spend several minutes or perhaps hours scrubbing it.
10. Use Baking Soda to Unscratch Your Plates
Plates often get scratched as a result of spoons, forks, and knives being constantly dragged across its surface. With time, these scratches tend to make the plates look tattered.
To make your plates look as good as new, you do not need to spend a lot of money. You just need a simple ingredient that is very common, baking soda.
Mix the baking soda with a little quantity of water and use your fingers or a piece of soft fabric to gently apply rye paste on the scratched areas of the plate that have been scratched. After doing this for a few minutes, rinse the plates off.
11. Clean And Shine Your Plants With Mayo
Your potted plants are one of the decorations that can make the home look very beautiful. However, dust and dirt can make the leaves of these plants look very unattractive.
Have you ever wondered why the leaves of flowers at the florist shop look healthy and shiny all-year-round? Well, it is true that they are professionals who can properly take care of those flowers.
But there is something you can do to make your plants shine. You can use mayonnaise to make your plants shine. Yes, it is weird and quite absurd from other home cleaning tips that we’ve shared so far. But it works.
Just take a small piece of soft fabric, add a little quantity of mayo and apply it on the leaves of your plants. Note that you can apply this to plants that have smooth leaves.
12. Shine Silver Items
Silver items make the house look sparkly and beautiful. However, being a metal, they sometimes tarnish and lose their shine. Shining these silver items that have been tarnished over the course of being used is one of the cleaning tips that you can employ to make your house look like new.
Unsure about how to do it? Don’t worry; we got you covered. If you are cleaning more than one silver item or larger vessels, you will need an aluminum foil, half tablespoon of baking soda, a gallon of water, and bakeware.
It is best to use bakeware that is not metal as it can react with the aluminum. With the shiny part up, place the aluminum foil inside the pan, add the water and baking soda and bring it to a boil. Then, add the items that you want to shine and leave it for about 15 seconds.
Take it out and allow it to cool down, then wipe it off and see your silver items sparkle again.
13. Eliminate Oven Spills
Oven spills can be very difficult to deal with, especially when the spills are burnt and stick to the oven racks. This can produce an unpleasant odor and taste to subsequent food that will be placed in it.
Soaking the oven racks in water overnight can help to soften the stains and make it easier to scrub with dish soap and warm water.
14. Get Rid of Water Stains on Glasses
Your windows can take on a lot of water stains from rainfall and other accidental spills. Getting rid of these stains can make the glasses look shinier and provide instant home cleaning benefits.
You can use a solution of equal parts water and white vinegar, and a piece of soft fabric to gently wipe out the stains.
15. Clean Your Shower Head
When was the last time you cleaned your showerhead? The showerhead is one of the most frequently used items in the house, and it can accumulate a lot of dirt as time passes.
Cleaning the showerhead may seem like a difficult task, but it can be made easy with just a few simple steps. First, fill a plastic bag that is large enough to cover the showerhead with white vinegar and wrap it around the showerhead.
Next, you take a piece of ribbon and fasten the plastic bag to the showerhead. Leave it to soak for a few hours or perhaps overnight if it is very dirty. Note that if your shower head is coated with brass, gold, or nickel, do not leave it in the vinegar for more than 30 minutes as it can damage it.
16. Remove Grease From Cabinets
This is another that falls under home cleaning tips for the kitchen. Kitchen cabinets can become greasy and dirty. Cleaning the cabinets will require a great deal of effort and patience. Leaving it that way will be very unsanitary.
Prepare a solution of equal parts of vinegar and warm water and pour it into a spray bottle, you can add in a few drops of dish soap if the cabinet is extremely greasy. Spray the solution on the greasy cabinets and allow it to sit for about 2 minutes.
Rinse the cabinet and dry it off with a piece of dry cloth.
17. Eliminate Upholstery Stains
Upholstery stains can be pretty frustrating as they are very visible, and a single mistake in cleaning them can make them worse than before.
If you choose not to hire home cleaning services to help with this, then It will be in your best interest to first identify the reason for the stain on the upholstery. Having this knowledge will help you to identify what to use in getting rid of it.
In cleaning spills on fabric upholsteries, water and a few drops of dish soap can get rid of water-based stains. But in cases of oil-based stains, you can apply a layer of baking soda on the stain to absorb it.
For synthetic upholsteries, make a solution with two parts of white vinegar, one part of warm water and a few drops of clear dish soap. Spray the solution on the stained portion and gently scrub with a clean cloth.
18. Clean TV Screens With Dry Clothes
Television screens are often neglected in the everyday home cleaning process. Cleaning your TV screens frequently will help to prevent the build-up of dust.
You just need to make use of a clean microfiber cloth to wipe the screen every day to have it looking neat at all times.
19. Make Home Cleaning a Group Activity
This is not one of those pro home cleaning tips. However, everyone in the home should probably get involved in keeping every corner of the home as clean as possible. This way, there will not be only one person to pick up misplaced articles in the house or take the clothes out of the washing machine.
What’s more?
Doing deep home cleaning quarterly or at least bi-annually requires a lot of effort and probably shouldn’t be left for any single member of the household. Carrying out this activity as a team fosters good relationships, and also allows everyone to appreciate the work done in keeping the home safe and conducive for everyone.
Alternatively, though, households with elderly members could use the final tip that we’ll discuss.
20. Hire Professional Home Cleaning Services
If a household has elderly members who can not keep up with the everyday cleaning of the house, the best option will be to hire a professional home cleaning service like Soji Cleaners.
These professionals know how to clean home surroundings and the best home cleaning tips.
With the advancements made in technology, there is the availability of on-demand home cleaning services. You can simply contact the company via their website or app and schedule a time that will be convenient to have them come over.
Home Cleaning Benefits To Keep in Mind
There are many benefits that you can derive when you learn how to clean home surroundings properly. Let’s take a look at just a few of them.
- A Clean Home Reduces Stress
A messy home is often linked to increased stress levels. Having a stressful day at work and coming home to a messy home can make you feel very fatigued.
Decluttering your home and taking care of the necessary chores can help you to manage stress and feel emotionally healthier.
- You Sleep Better
When your sleeping space is clustered up, you will find it very difficult to fall asleep. Going to bed with a lot of undone chores nagging at your brain will leave you feeling restless all through the night.
Sleeping in a clean house will make you sleep better.
- Home Cleaning Saves Money
When the items in your house are not cleaned as frequently as possible, they tend to get damaged beyond repair and this will require that they are replaced.
Taking the time and effort to clean your home will enable you to save the money that would have been used in replacing damaged items. This money can then be used for other things that are more important.
- Prevents Spread of Diseases
A dirty house is a perfect breeding ground for disease-causing germs. On the other hand, a clean hand leaves out little room for germs to breed.
Maintaining a clean home will make it very hard for you to fall sick as a result of germs. You get to live healthier.
- Reduces Allergies
Dirt, dust, and pet furs that have accumulated on carpets, beddings, and upholsteries can worsen the symptoms of asthma and increase the chances of getting allergic reactions.
Frequent dusting and cleaning will reduce the occurrence of allergic reactions. Additionally, getting rid of clutters can limit the number of crevices where dust can build up.
Evidently, a combination of these home cleaning benefits explain while experts recommend regular home cleaning irrespective of the household size.
Final Words
In this article, we considered the best home cleaning tips to make your house look like new. We also discussed home cleaning benefits to keep to mind, anytime you feel like giving up on the practice.
Cleaning the home may seem like a stressful job, especially if it has been neglected for a very long time or left for a single family member.
The key to reducing the workload lies in cleaning the house as often as possible. If left untouched for a really long time, the burden becomes heavier and your house will age really quickly.
Always remember that the effort you put into taking good care of your home is really worthwhile.