Living Room Cleaning Hacks That Get to All the Nooks and Crannies

The living room is one of the busiest areas in the house. Consequently, this leads to a lot of dirt and dust building up on various surfaces such as the floor, furniture, and even in the air you breathe. So, cleaning it should go beyond vacuuming the room and opening some windows for fresh air.

You can always hire a professional room cleaner to give your living room that deep cleaning it needs to look absolutely spotless. But keeping a clean living room goes beyond hiring professionals and should be a regular part of a routine. Knowing all the steps in cleaning the living room will ensure that you have a much cleaner room in the long run.

Remember the Vents

Why You Should Start By Cleaning the Vents

You may think that cleaning the vents may be an odd place to start with your living room cleanup. But when you consider how air quality is the basis of your health and comfort, it makes sense to start with ventilation cleanup. Cleaning the vent may seem like a huge undertaking, but it’s actually quite straightforward once you get into the system’s inner workings.

Remove the vent cover and using the brush attachment of your vacuum clean all the grime off the metal cover. Then give the metal cover a soapy bath to ensure the caked-up grime is cleaned off. Before putting the cover back on the vent, use a duster to get as much dust out of the ventilation shaft as possible.

You may even discover mold building up in the vent and on the cover metal itself. Use a vacuum to clean the mold itself then wipe the remaining mold off the surfaces using a mixture of water and bleach. Having mold in your vents can be a serious health hazard, so cleaning it off as soon as possible ensures your household breathes in clean air and there are no risks of catching an illness. It is also crucial that you contact an HVAC specialist to check the deeper areas of your HVAC system for mold, as cleaning these areas off with a standard vacuum and duster are nearly impossible.

Declutter the Living Room

Decluttering Your Living Room is Important

A clean and organized room goes beyond being pleasant to look at. There are many reasons to declutter your living room, from better room flow and an easier time finding whatever you’re looking for, to less strainful on your visual senses. Clutter is known to cause stress and disrupt positive moods and vibes. This is something you want to avoid in the living room which is meant for relaxation.

Decluttering involves doing more than simply stacking magazines neatly on the coffee table. A full declutter should help you rethink the layout of your living room, as well as pick out what items need to be in the room and what is complete junk. Collect all items in the living room and put them in a pile. These can be small pieces of decor, magazines, books, vases, flowerpots, extra cables, remotes, even an extra stool or armchair. Separate these items into three piles: need, don’t need, and junk.

Whatever is in the “need” pile stays in the room. Anything that’s in “don’t need” is stored or taken to another room. Junk is either thrown out or, better yet, donated. By decluttering the living room, you will open up more space to move around in, bring in more essential furniture, and in general reduce the stress that comes with seeing a messy room.

Deep Cleaning the Living Room Carpet

What Homemade Solutions to Use for Specific Stains

Say you had a little dinner party and one of your guests accidentally spilled a bright red beverage onto the carpet that you had a professional cleaned the day before. You don’t have to call them in again just to get rid of that tiny stain. Steam cleaning carpets is by far one of the most effective ways to get rid of those deep stains. So, if you have a steam mop, then you’re all set.

But for deeper stains that even a steam mop cannot get rid of, there are a ton of carpet stain cleaning remedies. Everyone has their own little hack that they use to get rid of the most common carpet stains. For example, a coffee stain can be removed using a mixture of soapy warm water and one tablespoon of white vinegar. Bright red tomato juice can be removed by simply mixing warm water with detergent and rubbing it carefully against the stain.

As for those red stains, many homeowners use two parts hydrogen peroxide mixed with one part dishwashing soap. When you’re wiping the stains with these solutions, be sure not to rub in big strokes. As the solution begins to break down the stains, if your wipes are too big they may end up spreading the stain out even more. 

Pet Hair Cleanup

How to Easily Pick Out Pet Hair

Is your furry friend shedding everywhere? Is all the fabric in your living room covered in those tiny hairs? If it was just one or two hairs, you could very easily pick them out and move on. But very rarely is there one or two bits of hair stuck in fabric — it’s always a ton of fur which is nearly impossible to pull out by hand.

Instead, you can use one of those squeegees that you use to clean windows and car windshields. Wipe the fabric with the dry squeegee which will pull the fur out of the weave. Alternatively, you can use a specialized fabric sofa cleaner but that is a tool best used against stains and is not as effective at pulling out fur. A squeegee is perfect, as it’s rubbery and contorts with the fabric, pulling out all the little bits of fur. Pulling out fur can be a part of your monthly maintenance routine, though if you have more than one pet around the house then you should consider doing it more often. 

Homemade Wood Polish

The Natural Remedy to Restore Gleam to Wood

Your wooden furniture loses its polish over time. It is the natural cycle this material goes through, regardless of the quality or how well it is kept. There are certain products you can purchase which help to restore wood finish back to its gleaming state, but there are some home remedies that can get the job done basically for free.

Channel your inner alchemist by combining one part lemons juice, two parts vinegar, and two parts olive oil. Mix these together and remember to make only as much as you’re going to use. These ingredients will go bad shortly after you mix them, so don’t expect to keep them on your shelves for long. Dip a dry cloth into the mixture and start rubbing the wood. It is important that you go with the veins or the grains of the wood, as going perpendicular to them will make the liquid absorption more difficult.

Once you’ve rubbed the surface with the solution, use a different clean cloth to wipe off any residual liquid. Remember to also do this with the grain of the wood as this will also help with the absorption. You will see the wood start to gleam in front of your own eyes, looking much newer than it actually is.

Remote Control Disinfection

How to Disinfect the Remote Control

The items which are typically the dirtiest are the ones that are regularly used and get passed around a lot. No other item in your living room gets passed around more than the remote control and as a result, it is always covered in bacteria. Especially if you enjoy watching TV with a snack, your remote more than likely has bits of food stuck between the buttons.

If these bits of food remain there for too long, they could become a breeding ground for bacteria and all sorts of diseases. Remove the batteries and clean the remote with disinfectant wipes. Use a cotton swab to clean out any of the slits or the spaces around the buttons. If a household member is tech-savvy or likes to tinker with gadgets, then it would be better to take the remote apart entirely.

By separating the sensitive electronics from the plastic shell you clean into the deeper areas of the remote without damaging it. This way you will get all the gunk out of the remote and keep your household safe from any nasty diseases hiding inside the little gadget.