Spring Cleaning #4 - The Bathroom | Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

OK so spring is officially AWOL!

But in the spirit of finishing what I've started, here is part 4 of my spring cleaning series, focused on bathrooms.

The idea is that it is broken into easy parts so you can easily add activities onto your normal cleaning routine throughout the spring.

Or indeed throughout the year.

In case you missed the previous weeks, they focused on:

You'll find all 52 activities in this downloadable Complete Spring Cleaning Checklist.

The activities for cleaning the bathroom covered this week are listed below. As always it looks like a lot but most of them are 15 minutes jobs, so if you do a couple a week it's not a big demand on your time.

Spring Clean The Bathroom

Descale shower and shower head
When the water's reduced to a trickle or in our case squirts out all over the bathroom at funny angles, you know it's time to descale the shower head.

The only thing is it can be a real pig to do! But A Real Life Housewife has a great approach whereby you put vinegar in a bag and attach it to the shower head.

Broccoli Cup Cake descales taps

Descale taps and fittings
Scale from hard water on taps and fittings looks horrid but worse it damages the taps and makes it much more likely that you will have leaks and need to replace them. The scale is also much harder to clean the longer you leave it.

Broccoli Cup Cake gets her clean with just lemon juice. But in London the water is really, really hard and I have found the only "green" cleaner that works for me is Ecover Limescale Remover which I can really recommend.

Clean and repair grouting

The Happier Homemaker cleans grout

Grubby grouting doesn't just look grotty. As The Happier Homemaker learnt the hard way it can stop untold damage if your toddler accidentally floods the bathroom - yikes!

She has tips on how to clean the grouting with a commercial product but you can also just use trusty old baking soda (bicarb) with an old toothbrush.

Scrub down bath and shower

All She Cooks cleans the shower

And once you've got the shower head sorted you can clean down the tiles and doors with vinegar and dish washing liquid in one of those dish brushes you can fill with liquid as demonstrated by All She Cooks.

Deep clean loo
The toilet can be cleaned naturally with either vinegar or - as recommended by Simply Living Sherrie - citric acid. It does also need a bit of elbow grease to really scrub under the rim and just under the bend - if you rub at both you may discover all sorts of grimness that you couldn't see comes floating away!

Clean out drains and u-bends

The combo of hair, products and toothpaste can make the sink, bath and shower drains totally gross - try taking the u-bend off your sink and check out the gunge! Yuk yuk yuk!

But there are some easy ways to clean out without gallons of chemicals. Decorated Chaos has a really nifty gadget for getting hair out of the drains. And once you've done this put 3/4 cup baking soda (bicarb), followed by a 1/2 cup of vinegar down the drain and then shove a rag cloth in the top so that they can do their work without bubbling back up again.

After about 30 minutes pour boiled water down the drain to rinse out the vinegar and soda.

Make up organisation
from Clean and Scentsible

Sanitise bins
Give them a real scrub all over - including the underneath - and spray with something anti-septic.

Change loo brush and sanitise holder
I'm in two minds about loo brushes - the old fashioned "bog brush" gets pretty grim even if you replace the head regularly but the ones with use it once and dispose cloth heads are in my mind more than a bit rubbish. Whatever you use make sure it is replaced at least once a year and the holder really scrubbed out.

Clear out toiletries and make up
Despite my best efforts I've got a cupboard and drawer full of largely unused toiletries and make up. Some of it is prehistoric and needs chucking out and then I might actually be able to use the good stuff. One of my favourite house & home bloggers Clean and Scentsible has some great ideas for organising make up.

Reorganise cupboards

A Bowlful of Lemons'
beautiful bathroom cupboard

This is a big one on my list this year. There is so much crammed in there and you can't get to anything without taking everything out.

I have been scouring Pinterest for good ideas. Look What I Did, Imperfect Homemaking and Frugal Family Times have some great ideas but I am particularly swooning over A Bowlful of Lemons immaculate organisation.

Wash and sterilise bath toys
Unfortunately, plastic toys are a magnet for mold - hot glue any tiny holes before they get anywhere near the bath - and unless they are really well rinsed every time they come out of the bath, they do get quite slimy. Put anything you can in the dishwasher or soak in the bath. Also give any bath toy storage a good scrub - our's gets pretty yukky at the bottom.

Sort out first aid kit
Go through your first aid kit. Throw out anything past use by date and order replacements. If you don't know what you need you can download my printable first aid check-list.

Clean floor
Once a year, give your floor a real treat and give it a real scrub. Get behind the cupboards, radiators and loo and into the corners and work on any real marks. If you can let it dry for as long as possible after washing without anyone walking on it and then go over with a sealing treatment that will prevent it from getting marked.