Nine Things You Forgot To Clean For 2019

So it feels like a life time ago that I last sat down at my little ol’ station to type up a blog.  But so much has went on and so much has changed!

I promise that I will get into all the fun little deets of my recent life changes soon for those of you who don’t follow me on IG or YouTube (GO DO THAT NOW!), but for now, I want to focus on this new year and bring it in right.

Growing up, the new year always meant a clean slate, both in life and in the house. And now that I’m a real adult, this has more meaning than ever for me.

Zeroing in on the more domestic front of this, its so easy to get caught up in our daily life, that the little things in our homes often get neglected. And while this things might start off small, they can lead to big problems (and coins spent) later on.

So I like to use the start of the new year to focus on some of the more forgotten areas of my home, to make sure our abode is in tip top ship for the rest of the year.

1) Clean/Change Your Filters

Changing out/ cleaning your filters through out your home is probably one of the easiest ways to keep your house in good shape throughout the year.

The air filter in your home is probably the most obvious one to change. Depending on your lifestyle, you should change that out every 2 months to once a year.

But other filters are more forgettable. Like, did you know most new washers have a filter? And did you remember to change the filter in your vacuum? What about your refrigerator?

Spend some time this New Year’s season to go around your house and clean up ALL of you filters, and then set up a schedule for yourself to make sure that your filters stay clean and working at optimum levels through out the whole year.

 2) Get To Those Base Boards

Okay, maybe this is just me, and I feel ashamed to even admit this…But… My base boards are often left forgotten. I’m pretty good about keeping everything else on a regular schedule but theres something about base boards that are just…forgettable.

That said, clean baseboards make one heck of a difference to how clean a room looks and feel. So be sure to pull out that bucket of warm soapy water and old towel and really get those corners!

It feels like a lot of trouble now, but you WILL love the outcome.

Do you have any good tips on how to clean your baseboards? Let me know below!

3) Reorganize Your Pantry/Closets

I love organization in my life, but during rough and fast moving periods, my closets and pantry quickly become a dumping/ mess hiding ground for the house.

So I find that this is generally a good time for me to sit back and figure out how to best reorganize these spaces so that they can be more efficient  (hold more stuff) and also give them a good scrub down in the process.

4) Get Rid of Clutter

As you’re going through your closets and pantry,  you”ll probably end up seeing lots of thing-a-ma-bobs and whose-ma-whatsits that you haven’t touched since the last time you decided to do a clean out.

Instead of hanging on to them for yet another year to take up space and collect dust, its probably a better option to let them go. There are plenty of legit donation centers that you can drop off gently used goods to to help someone else out.

Alternatively, you can use apps such as Postmark to sell items and recoup some coins backs.

5) Dust From Top to Bottom

With all my allergies, I tend to be an avid duster. That said, I notice that whenever I do a major clean out of my home, dust seems to come from everywhere. So I like to grab a hardy duster and put those feathers to work.

Since you’re already moving and reorganizing things, make sure to pull out and dust your bookshelves, hutches, liquor cart–seriously, dust anything and everything that you might have forgotten.

I HIGHLY recommend grabbing a duster that will actually trap dust instead of just moving it around. My go to for years have been Swiffer products  for the floors and high places, and microfiber towels for TV’s, table tops and other flat surfaces.

6) Deep Clean Your Windows

You’ll always be amazed at the difference clean windows will bring to your home.

Cleaning your windows will give an added sense of light and freshness. The first thing I tackled when we moved into this current place we doing a deep clean on our windows and it’s really helped to make things feel more open.

I like to spray down the panes with a good but gentle glass cleaner and give then a light scrub down with newspaper for a streak clean finish. Then I like to take some diluted bleach and a scrubber to get into any craveas and remove all the gunk and grim from the sill. Lastly, if you window has a ledge, don’t forget to give that a rub down too.

7) Re-caulk and Retouch

Re-caulking, re-staining and touching up paint around your home is probably the easiest way to make your home feel renewed fresh this new year. Not only that, but it keeps your home in good shape helps to protect it from damage.

Now, this isn’t something that you would need to do every year, as it’s suggested that you only need to re-caulk ever five years, and re-stain/ repaint every 7-10 years. However, I like to use the new year to just check up on these things and see if anything needs to be done.

If your caulking is looking dingy, or if you’re noticing some separation from your base boards to your flooring, its fairly easy and cheap to re-caulk it yourself. If your wall are yellowing a bit, now would be a great time to give them a good scrub down or give them a fresh coat of paint.

8) Textile Care

Textiles bring some much character to our homes, but are often forgotten in our daily/weekly cleaning routines. So the new year is a prefect time to start integrating them into our routines.

Clean your curtains (they should be cleaned monthly), deep clean your couch, condition your leather furniture (these should happen about every 6 months), shampoo your carpet (every 6 months to a year depending on your lifestyle) and give your mattress a good scrub down (every 3-6 months).

Doing these all at the start of the new year will ensure that they all get cleaned at least once this year and will also increase the likelihood that you’ll keep up with cleaning them more regularly.

9) Deep Clean Appliance

So I will freely admit again that I never really thought about deep cleaning my appliance until I got much older.  But deep cleaning your appliance regularly can help them work more effectively, last long, and use less energy. So cleaning them thoroughly should also be on your New Years todo list.

Clean your dishwasher once a month (ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE HARD WATER) using distilled vinegar.  You’ll want to clean your coffee maker, microwave and garbage disposal out once a month too (for the garbage disposal, just drop in half a lemon, ice and salt to clean it out, DON’T DO IT BY HAND!).

Washer machine also get pretty dirty, even if you are washing your clothes n hot water. So I like to wipe mine down with a multi-purpose spray once a month as well.

And every 2-3 months you should remove everything from your refrigerator and cleaning it out top to bottom to prevent bacterial growth.

Knowing that these things are done and cleaned in my home is a great way to start the new years off fresh and allows me to be productive in other areas of my life. It’s also a great way to start to make a regular cleaning schedule to keep up with your home.

Do you feel like I left anything off this list? And how do you like to kick off your new year in your home? Make sure to let me know!

P.S I made a little cheat sheet for you all. Feel free to pin it!