spring cleaning - Stuff Parents Need

This post was written in partnership with Kimberly-Clark and The Motherhood. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

How’s spring cleaning coming along for you, friends? Have you gotten started yet? For me, it’s mostly been happening in fits and starts, and has involved lots of decluttering. It feels so good to get a counter space completely cleared off and to finally get rid of all that junk that didn’t need to be there! It also feels good to take a few trips to the thrift store to drop off items that could use a place to live, but that have worn out their welcome in our home.

Spring cleaning, for me, is really about feeling like you can breathe within the house. Less stuff, less dust, less grime. Less is most definitely more in this case.

One room in our house that always feels a bit cramped is our bathroom, so I’ve been decluttering and deep cleaning there, especially. As I worked on this room, I actually identified 4 different things that it has NEVER occurred to me to intentionally clean, and they certainly needed a good cleaning. Maybe they are areas that you forget about, too?

1. Cleaning the sink

I’m not talking about the part of the sink you can see, because we all know to clean that area (even if we don’t do it as often as we should!). In this case, I’m referring to your pipes and your drain stopper. Break out your Viva® Vantage paper towels and scrub away the nasty grime on your sink stoppers first. If you haven’t tried this particular line of paper towels, it’s honestly a must for spring cleaning. the Viva Vantage paper towels have a terrycloth-like texture and seem to do particularly well when you are scrubbing.

Next, it’s time to give a little TLC to the pipes. I promise you that they have a caked on layer (or 4) of saliva, toothpaste, soap scum, hair and anything else that has been poured down them. The first thing you need to do is take a drain snake (apologies if that’s not the proper name…that’s what I call it!) and stick it down in there, and move it around really good (as if you had an actual clog). This movement helps break the junk up a bit. Now take 1/2 cup of baking soda and pour it down, followed by a mixture of vinegar and boiling hot water. You will be able to see the difference with your own eyes when you peek down there. And while you won’t see the difference in your day to day life, by cleaning your bathroom sink pipes, you are going to positively impact the overall smell in the bathroom, too.

2. Clean the Toilet Bowl Brush Holder

Most people’s toilet bowl brush sits in a holder of some sort so that toilet water isn’t dripped on the bathroom floor. But guess what? That water is just collecting in the holder and it is nasty. So once again, grab those paper towels and an anti-bacterial spray and give the holder a good wipe down, inside and out. This is a quick task to do, but definitely necessary.

3. Clean the bathroom exhaust light

Most people have an ehxaust fan in the bathroom. Since the air is moist in the bathroom, there probably isn’t a ton of dust gathering up there, but I promise you that there is some. By dusting away the debris and cleaning out the light filter, you will brighten the room up and help your fan run more efficiently.

4. Clean your cleaning products

I have a vivid memory of Danny Tanner, the dad in Full House, cleaning his cleaning products. It was a big joke on the show about what a clean freak he was, even to the point of cleaning his cleaning products. But as it turns out, those bottles get rather nasty over time. I checked mine out and realized that they were pretty gross. So I took just a few minutes to wipe them all down. Now they look nice, they smell nice, and they are free of dust and grime. They hang out in the bathroom that I am working hard to spring clean, so they might as well be nice and clean, too.

While you are cleaning up in your bathroom this spring, definitely take a moment to make sure you are stocked up on the supplies you need, like Viva paper towels and Cotonelle® or Scott® 1000 toilet paper, which you can find at your nearest Walmart. I actually completely cleared off a shelf in our bathroom to make room for just toilet paper. The excess bottles of shampoo, bubble bath, and random bath toys had to go in favor of more utilitarian items. I love the change! I also love knowing exactly how much toilet paper I have on hand because as we all know, running out of toilet paper is pretty much the worst thing.

I hope my tips will help you get your bathroom refreshed this spring. Even though I might have added a bit to your cleaning list, I promise taking a few minutes to clean these areas will make a difference in how your bathroom looks, feels and smells.

I know I’m late to the whole “Spring Cleaning” party. Honestly, it’s a party I usually just skip altogether. Too much work. Not enough fun. I’d rather sit on my couch piled sky high with laundry and eat my dinner on a paper plate (due to there being no clean dishes) while I watch the only non-kid DVD I can manage to find in our spilled over tower of movies.

Oh wait. That also sounds terrible! And a little too close to my reality for comfort! The fact is, I was having a rare quiet moment in my home a few days ago, and I had about 15 square feet of my house that was legitimately clean. And organized. And it felt like the happiest place on earth. That’s when I realized that once again, my stuff was owning me and was taking WAY too much of my time.

Every day feels like Groundhog Day around here in some respects. The kitchen is constantly dirty, so we are constantly loading and unloading the dishwasher. Same story with laundry. There are piles EVERYWHERE! And we just have too much stuff to give everything a proper home, so there’s always a mess. I’ve heard before that you can’t organize clutter, and that is SO true.

So I took to my closet and got REALLY REAL with myself. If I didn’t love it I got rid of it. I now have a grand total of 20 things hanging in my closet. It is a slim wardrobe, but I will wear every single thing in there. That’s how it should be! And there will be many different women in the city who will stumble upon my wardrobe rejects and be absolutely giddy, because was was ill-fitting for me will be the perfect fit for them!

So where’s the “lucrative” piece I referred to? Well, in addition to snagging a hefty tax deduction for so many threads (most of which really are still in great shape, just wrong for me), I also have pinpointed several items that I can sell and have it actually be worth my time selling on Craigslist. Items such as a double stroller we NEVER use, some specialty cookware and some luxurious table linens that are only gathering dust in my home are going to be put up for sale. I won’t make a killing, but I’ll be able to supplement our vacation fund quite nicely, and make my house feel more comfortable in the process!

And in addition to getting rid of some big things in the house, I’ve also discovered that you can make quite a bit of money getting rid of some small things, like your old cell phones! Do you have any sitting in a drawer in your house? And you have no idea what to do with them? Rather than wait around until they really are worthless, go ahead and sell them! Check out what you can get for them at sellcell.com. I just learned that my old phone is currently worth $51 and there’s a company willing to buy it right now. Wow!! Talk about easy money!

Sometimes, my friends, it pays to dejunk your life. You’ll feel better. Your house will definitely look better. And you can skip the dishes tonight, because you can go out to eat with the cash you just earned! 🙂 Do you have any success stories with unloading your junk for tax credit or for cash? I’d love to hear about it!

Thanks to our friends at SellCell.com for partnering with Stuff Parents Need for this post.