I remember being a kid and any my parents would hand me the duster and to go off and clean the numerous shelves, knickknacks and books in the family home. It turns out there is a right way and a wrong way to dust in order to get the most out of the time spent doing it! Let’s face it – it’s a boring job so anything that reduces the time spent is a good thing, right? With this in mind, Belle Casa take a look at 4 tips to be a more efficient duster!
- Pick Your Tools
Before you start dusting, you will want to be armed with the right tools to get the job done. For 99% of dusting jobs, all you will need is a microfiber or soft cloth, a little water, and a fibre duster. If you dust your home on a regular basis, a fibre duster will likely be your best bet to pick up that thin layer of dust that accumulates on every surface. You can continue to use that one duster until it starts leaving little trails of dust on the surfaces. Even then, you can still get a little more use out of it by flipping it around on the duster handle. This will often give you a cleaner side of the duster to finish up a little more of the job.
If the dust has gotten away from you, a soft cloth or microfiber cloth and a sprinkle of water may be your better bet. When the layer of dust is slightly thicker, it can clog up a fibre duster quickly. Using a slightly damp cloth will allow you to get the dust a little wet and collect it into the cloth so it doesn’t fly into the air (only to descend on some other unsuspecting surface).
If you like to polish your finished wood, you may also want to have a can of furniture polish and another clean rag handy. As I kid, it was my job to walk around the house with a can of Pledge and a scrap of an old t-shirt each week to dust all the shelves.
- Move High to Low around the Room
When it comes to dusting, the most efficient way to move through a room is top to bottom, and in a circle around the room. I always encourage the Belle Casa team to start in one corner of the room and look all the way to the ceiling. Are there any cobwebs in corners that need to be dusted away? Moving down a few inches, do the tops of the window treatments need to be dusted? Farther down, are there any shelves? Finally, are there any baseboards that have been collecting dust?
By dusting everything up high first, you will knock the dust down onto the next surface. If you keep doing this, the dust will end up on the floor where you can vacuum or mop it up easily. If you complete each surface from top to bottom before moving left or right, you can ensure that everything in front of you has been completed. When you complete the dusting of a room in 5-foot sections, you are guaranteed to hit every possible dusty surface.
- Don’t Forget the Little Things
When dusting, it’s easy to see that the horizontal surfaces need to be wiped. Oftentimes though, people overlook the items that are actually sitting on the shelves. Or, they may simply look around them. When you are dusting shelves with small items on them, you will want to pick each of these items up to dust underneath it. Depending on how quickly dust gathers in your home, you may not need to do this every time you dust, but you will need to do it on a fairly regular basis to keep your figurines and plates from gathering a grey line around their bases.
The figurines with the intricate parts will typically need to be hand-wiped to get the dust off them. Depending on what your figurines are made of, you may actually want to wash them in a sink full of soapy water, similar to how you would wash dishes. Any figurines that are made out of glass or sealed ceramic would be fine to wash this way. Figurines made out of wood or unsealed materials should be dusted by hand, using those Q-Tips and other little tools. It’s tedious, but again, if you keep up on this with a normal dusting routine, you shouldn’t have to worry about it again for a while.
If you do your dusting right, you will have to do it less often and there should certainly be no panicking when the in-laws come over! So what to do with the extra time you saved? Why not go out for a nice family day out at Buckinghamshire’s cutest day experience at Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital Visitors Centre?
Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital Visitors Centre is an excellent place for kids to meet and learn about a variety of British wildlife and also about the specialist hospital which looks after them free of charge. Kids can find out about how they either release animals back to the wild when they are fit, or gives them a home if not. Information is provided in a variety of formats and there is an educational trail to follows which takes you around the gardens, past the pond and to the deer paddocks. This is a great opportunity for kids to discover some of Britain’s elusive wildlife and get an insight into their treatment.
Keep in touch with Belle Casa for more top cleaning tips and local activities on a monthly basis. Belle Casa is proud to be Buckinghamshire and Berkshires premier Domestic Cleaning Service and Ironing Service. Get in touch today to see how we could help you!
Check out our previous cleaning tips on How to Remove Pet Hair, And Using Salt and Vinegar throughout the house to aid your cleaning efforts. We also look at great days out in the Buckinghamshire and Berkshire region.
