7 Cleaning Hacks that Will Make Your Home Feel Brand New

When you gaze across your home, do you find yourself quickly bypassing over the areas that need attention? You know, the spaces filled with clutter, or have collected so much dust you can’t bring yourself to tackle it? We can relate. Did you know that the average person spends over 12,800 hours cleaning over their lifetime? Who wants to be cleaning when a new Netflix binge is waiting?

We live hard in our homes but there comes a moment when we have to put our foot down, or better yet, our broom. Today is that day. Here are seven hacks to clean your home, so it doesn’t feel like such a mammoth chore.

That questionable odor coming from your dishwasher isn’t going away without some attention. Food debris will eventually break down but it will take several cycles and that means food odors will permeate your appliance until then. Your dishwasher has a lifespan of 7-12 years, and if you don’t want to fork out money for a new one, you’ll want to clean it regularly. Scoop out any food with a paper towel and use an old toothbrush to clean the filter for hard to remove bits.

Your stemware, unfortunately, isn’t good at concealing water spots and dust. We love sparkling wine glasses, especially those we have displayed in plain sight. We don’t love the water spots and cloudy residue our dishwasher may have left on them, however. To remedy this, use a solution of white vinegar and water and soak for 5-minutes in the solution. After, remove your stemware and dry with a microfiber towel.

We don’t know many people who don’t rely heavily on their coffee makers. The magical brew is a part of how the world wakes up each day with roughly 65% of Americans consuming coffee daily. Trouble brews (we couldn’t resist) when your coffee maker gets scally and collects hard water debris. To get it back to “like new_ shape, fille the reservoir up with white vinegar and water. Hit the brew button and let it run half of its cycle. Let it sit for about 20-30 minutes and then let it finish its full brew cycle. Finally, brew a full pot of hot water to rinse it out.

If you find yourself doing everything you can to not touch your shower curtain while bathing, it might be time to revive it. The average American takes 6-showers a week. (did you know Brazilians average 14 showers a week?) This kind of shower action is going to take a toll on your shower curtain. Good news, you can actually throw your curtain in the washer with detergent and towels for agitation. From there just hand it back up to dry. Now, you can touch your shower curtain again.

All those living room dance parties may have left your floors scuffed or marked up over the past year. These don’t typically come up easily while cleaning your floors and we tend to leave them for “another time.” Here is a hack to remove those for good. You can use an old sock and often remove them with that. If that doesn’t work, many swear by using tennis balls to remove hard shoe marks.

We adore our creative kiddos, but we aren’t super happy when they decide to reveal their talents on our walls and other surfaces. We have a couple of options for this sort of conundrum. For walls, you can create a baking soda and water paste, apply with a small paintbrush, and let sit for up to 10-minutes. Wipe down after and it should remove permanent marker. For your wood floors, you’ll do the same but with toothpaste.

Do you do that face scrunching thing when you walk into your home and you smell your pets before you see them? If you’ve been disappointed by all the air fresheners, filter oils, and similar odor-masking products, we feel you. We suggest going back to basics and reaching for your baking soda. You’ll be amazing at what sprinkling this around your home can do to keep your house smelling fresh. Just apply it to the soft surfaces your pet loves the most, let sit and sink in, then vacuum up.

Hopefully, these cleaning hacks have inspired you to tackle a few cleaning projects this Spring. We suggest just cleaning a few spaces at a time, trying to clean your whole home at this level is too overwhelming. Create a cleaning calendar and commit to just a few things per week. After a month of attention, your home will look brand new.