I’m partnering up with Dyson today to help bring you a little bit of Spring cleaning and everyday cleaning motivation and inspiration. Who can’t use a little more of that? 🙂 I’ve been having so much fun with my new V6 Absolute that Dyson sent me recently and I’ve wanted to use it for everything so I’m really starting to maximize its potential. There are so many ways that we can use our vacuum cleaners around the house to make our lives cleaner and easier and today I’m feeling inspired to share with you some of my favorite all-time uses for a vacuum and some of the new ones I’ve come up with just recently.
Of course these ideas will work with any vacuum cleaner that you have, but a really light weight cordless powerhouse of a machine like the Dyson V6 Absolute makes your cleaning job that much easier and that much more effective. 🙂
Here are some of my favorite ideas!
Vacuum glass light fixtures before using glass cleaner to get rid of dust and fur and avoid having it stick on after spraying
I have such a tough time with some of our glass light fixtures around the house. We get so much dust and pet fur that seems to find a home on them and spraying it directly with glass cleaner (or my favorite, rubbing alcohol!) often seems to make half of it stick to the glass and get left behind. The solution? Quickly remove all of the excess dust and debris before you do the final shine by vacuuming it off with the soft brush attachment!
Vacuum bed sheets and quilts between washings to keep pet fur from building up
We are definitely one of those “pets are allowed on the beds” kind of households. Often times it’s both cats and the dog at once! A light weight cordless vacuum makes it so easy to just swish over the tops of beds to remove any extra fur balls between cleanings. This really helps cut down on the amount of pet fur that ends up on your clothes too when you sit down on the edge of the bed to put your socks on in the morning!
Vacuum window sills to keep allergens out
If you like to open up your windows in the Spring, or even if your windows don’t have the best seal on them, allergens can get inside and sit on the trim around your windows just waiting to find a breeze to hop on and make their way further into your home. Vacuuming around the trim of your windows and doors every once in awhile can go a long way towards reducing the allergens in your home and it will keep them looking great too! Be honest, when was the last time your remembered to clean your window trim? It makes a big difference! 🙂
Clean your books too!
And speaking of allergens, books, especially old ones are huge collectors! Dust and allergens just love to snuggle their way into those soft frayed pages and not let go.
You’d probably be nervous to use a big vacuum with a power head attachment to remove dust from your family’s precious heirlooms, but an easy to handle handheld vacuum, like the V6 Absolute converts into, makes it really easy to be super gentle and also super effective. Make sure you use a soft brush attachment!
Dusting
While you’ve got that soft brush attachment out, why not dust the rest of your house too? Dusting with a vacuum is great because the dust gets stored away in the canister rather than settling back into the room when you’re done. You’ll probably need to detail dust with a soft cloth every once in awhile, but your vacuum can take care of most of the everyday dust for you so much more quickly and effectively!
Appliances
This is one of my favorites! You know those bits of food that collect under the grates on your stove? Or those crumbs in the fridge? Instead of taking everything apart and trying to pick all the mini debris up with about a hundred passes with a paper towel, just use your crevice tool and vacuum up all the mess! Just make sure that whatever appliance you’re cleaning has cooled down first!
In the Bathroom
Bathrooms are serious dust magnets. All that steam just seems to call out to every dust particle in the house (the ones that aren’t already on my glass light fixtures, I mean) and beckon them into the bathroom. Once they’re there, the steam promptly sticks them to the walls, baseboards, cabinets, the side of the toilet, just about anywhere and won’t let go! Wiping everything down with bathroom cleaner is almost useless because so much of that dust and fur just gets smeared around. Giving everything a quick once-over with a vacuum and a soft brush attachment makes the job of actually wiping down everything in the bathroom so much quicker and easier!
Lampshades
I’ve always used a lint roller for my lampshades, but now my huge supply of refills is starting to come to an end. Thank goodness this vacuum arrived just in time! It makes the job just as quick and easy AND I don’t have to keep peeling away the sticky layers every few seconds on the lint roller.
Curtains, Drapes, and Blinds
These are so important for a pretty room but such huge dust collectors! If you really stop to look at how much dust your window coverings collect, you’d realize that taking them down and cleaning them enough to actually keep them clean would be a full time job! Why not just give them a quick swipe with the vacuum and rest assured that they can still go awhile longer without needing to go through the whole washing and ironing routine?
Your Floors
OK! I know I said that these ideas would be “besides the obvious” and using a vacuum on your floors definitely counts as obvious, but I really do have to tell you how much cleaner my floors are now. I vacuum all the time! I vacuum on a whim! I vacuum just cause it’s there! It’s so easy to never have to bend down and plug anything in and this machine really does pick every single bit of weird toddler food debris, big or completely crushed, in a single pass. It really helps that it comes with two full-sized motorized heads. There’s the usual carpet one, but there’s also one for hard floors! It really does make a difference! So my floors are really clean and that makes me overall just a little bit happier. 🙂
Windows AND window screens
Do you ever look at your windows? I mean really look at them? They can get so filthy with dust slowly over time that we might not notice. I remember looking at some houses when we were buying our last house and one bathroom had a screen on it that was absolutely caked in dust. Our real estate agent was disgusted, but the rest of the house was really clean, so you can be sure it was just something that the homeowner never really noticed! There’s no need to take everything down and spray it and scrub it like a crazy person if you just stay on top of the dust problem on a regular basis by giving your windows and their screens just a quick little vacuum every now and then!
So that’s how I’ve been having fun and getting my house a lot cleaner with my new Dyson V6 Absolute lately. Do you use your vacuum for anything really clever that we all need to know about? I’d love to hear about it!
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.