Looking Clean and Smelling Fresh

Photo by Flickr

A quick tip: When I was a maid for a professional service, we were told to pay close attention to two things before we left a home:

1. Does it look clean?
2. Does it smell fresh?

Note that there is nothing about the home actually being clean. Just looking clean, and smelling fresh. While I do my best to keep my home sanitized and reasonably clean, sometimes I have to settle for looking and smelling clean. Luckily, these are two of the most frugal ways to keep your home welcoming.

Eliminating clutter is paramount to keeping your home looking clean. It also makes it easier to deep clean on the days you have more time. We have lived in several small spaces, and keeping clutter at bay made the tiny rooms feel a little bit bigger. Having a clear coffee table and nearly lined books on our bookshelves make the room breathe a bit more. It also made it very handy to quick clean- take a dust rag with a little bit of furniture polish on it, and boom! It looks clean. Depending on what you use to clean with, it also smells fresh.

I'm also all about scents. A multitude of housecleaning sins can be forgiven if your house smells wonderful. Baking is a way to kill two birds with one stone- who does not love to come home to fresh bread and cookies? But if you're short on time, lighting a scented candle or giving your room a quick blast with air freshener or Febreze can also work wonders. I love Febreze- it is one of the few products that I always go name brand on. You don't need much scent, just a bit! Part of "smelling fresh" is not smelling like you blasted a fire hose full of scent through your house. A squirt in each room will suffice.

If you have smelly pets that are allowed on the furniture, using Febreze on your couch and chairs will freshen them considerably. I'll admit to even fabrezing my cloth shower curtain and bedspreads- it helps them smell fresh with little work on my part. Febreze has two new products out as well. One makes the bottle look more like a body spray or perfume bottle so it can blend into your décor , and one is a fabric refresher and air freshener in one. I thought that one was clever.

I'm not saying that you should never deep clean or actually wash anything, but when time is short or you're in a season in your life that deep cleaning is just not possible, doing a quick clutter swipe, lighting a scented candle, dusting, frebrezing and a quick vacuum job will keep your house from looking dirty and smelling yucky. You don't need to spend money on a maid service or spend hours cleaning to achieve this!