Spring means spring cleaning, especially when you’re selling a home.

Welcome to Part 2 of our series on spring-cleaning suggestions!

• Depersonalize every room. The winter holidays tend to leave our home’s looking like a giant scrapbook. Enough time has passed to now recycle your saved stash of Hallmark cards, to organize the family photos into a photo album for the shelf and to store the newly framed photos into a box for your next house. You want the house to appear homey, but you also want the potential homebuyers to imagine themselves living there. That’s hard to do when your family and friend’s faces are smiling back at them. Instead, substitute your personal attributes with pictures of your house in other seasons, or with neutral photography or artwork.
• Clear your kitchen counters of everything and give them a thorough cleaning with eco-friendly cleaners or just vinegar and water. Our kitchens tend to overfill with comfort foods during the winter months that most of us probably wouldn’t mind tossing now that tank top and shorts season is right around the corner! After you clean the counters, clean each individual appliance as you place them back where they belong back. Toss the stale cookies or leftover fruitcake that you just aren’t going to ever eat.
• Disinfect everything. Using an eco-friendly spray cleaner or anti-bacterial wipes, clean all door handles, sink faucets, light switches, and any object that multiple hands grasp on an average day. Though this isn’t a visually obvious change, it’ll keep you and your family healthier during this potentially stressful time, and it won’t spread the germs of potential homebuyers that walk through your house.
• Rid your home of all odors. Using a scentless cleaner, spray all of your carpeting, furniture, toys, throw rugs, pillows or anywhere that an odor could easily linger. Give your pets a thorough cleaning, wash all of your bedding and switch all of your towels for new, clean towels. Start taking the garbage out more often. Consider adding air fresheners as long as they don’t cause allergies and are not an overbearing scent.
• Now that the seasonal work is complete, it’s time to return to the routine of dusting and vacuuming. Keep up with these chores on a weekly basis so that your house looks ready for whenever a potential homebuyer decides to pop in. Lift objects off of shelves and counters instead of dusting around them. Vacuum under objects too. Dust the top of fans and the blinds. Clean surfaces with eco-friendly cleaners. Scrub showers and toilets free of stains, even if they are just water spots. Wash the kitchen table after every meal. Make your house look as spotless as ever!

Not only will these spring cleaning suggestions help to make a positive impression on potential homebuyers, but they will also make your day-to-day living healthier and more pleasant while you wait for a sale. If you’re the type to need an excuse to clean, here it is.