Deep Cleaning Your New House

So, you’ve bought a new home! First, congratulations on your new home. You’ve gotten past the hard part and now you’re on the final leg of the process, moving in. However, just because the house is new doesn’t mean it’s clean. Before you move in your furniture, you’re going to need to thoroughly clean your new house. Until then anything you move into the space is just going to an obstacle for your cleaning. So now you have the herculean task of deep cleaning the entirety of your new home, but where should you start?

1. Make a List

Everything is more manageable when you have things you can check off of a list You know everything that needs to be done, which reduces the stress of a task. Also, the instant gratification of being able to check things off of a list is amazing motivation. Go from room to room and write down everything that needs to be done in each space. Sweep the floor, dust the ceiling fan, wipe down the baseboards, mopping, dust the mantle, wipe down the windows, etc.

2. Start from one corner to the opposite corner.

It’s best to start from the ceiling, knocking all the dust and the dirt to the floor, so that you won’t end up having to clean the floors several times. I also suggest cleaning from the furthest corner from the door outwards until you make it out of the room. That way if you’re mopping or sweeping you don’t end up putting your dirty shoes or feet on your freshly cleaned floors.

3. Hit the Appliances

If you’ve inherited some of the appliances from the previous owners of the house, first congratulations they’ve saved you a good amount of money. However, even if they cleaned they’ve probably missed something, and you don’t want to cook in the remains of someone else’s crumbs, baked in grease, and dirt. Break everything down so you can clean your appliances thoroughly. Be much more careful with stainless steel, it’s not all that forgiving when it comes to chemical reactions — that blue dish soap and hot water will usually do the trick.

4. DON’T SKIP THE WINDOWS AND LIGHT FIXTURES

Look, I know you're tired of this by now and I’m sorry, but I promise that it’s totally worth it. If your house isn’t new you don’t know when they were last cleaned. You think your light fixtures are frosted glass… they might actually be clear. Accumulation of dirt in clear light fixtures looks strangely like they were meant to be opaque. You would be surprised at how much light you might be missing out on when your light fixtures aren’t clean.

Same with your windows. Unlock the window, lift it about a quarter of the way, then pinch the two tabs on the top toward the center while pulling the window toward you. On higher end windows, the top panel will also tilt in. With the bottom pane tilted into the room, lower the upper pane about a quarter of the way, or until you can see the same tabs that are on the lower pane and repeat the process. When you’re done cleaning, just push the panes back into their tracks one at a time until you hear a click. The increase of natural light will be rewarding.