Spring Cleaning: Baseboards

Spring cleaning seems to come with so many of those tasks that you really don't want to do. At least I don't. Not really. It's just that I see they are in major need to be taken care of, thus the reason they are on my list to take care of this month. 

Yesterday, I started cleaning the baseboards (moulding) on the upper level of our home. I ended up getting much more done than I expected to when I started. I did the bonus room, the hallway and landing, my daughter's bathroom, and my youngest daughter's room. 

I followed the same method I used in the fall when I cleaned the baseboards on the lower level. I mentioned it here on the blog. Basically, I dusted them with a small paint brush and then used a rag dipped into soapy water to clean up. This time several areas were pretty bad, and I needed to follow up with a dry cloth to really get the dust way. 

Dust accumulation

This the first time I have cleaned these since we moved in. And just like the some of the areas on the lower level, many of them were particularly dirty from the owner's who lived here before. I remember noticing it almost right away, but I had other things that were more important at the time. Now I have time to rid them of the sticky spills and dust. 

Evidence of sticky spills

I think today I spent probably about 1.5 hours working on these baseboards. Some of that time is getting clean water and just simply moving the stuff blocking access to some of the boards. It does go faster than you might think. 

Sparkly clean! 

Tomorrow, I expect to complete my older daughter's room, the master bedroom, bathroom, closet and the stairway. I expect it to take a similar amount of time and I can cross the task off my list. I'm afraid to check the status of the ones I did in the fall. I hope they aren't dusty again already...but they probably are. I'll schedule that for another time. 

By the way, I'm not sure that I have cleaned baseboards in other homes,which had wood stained baseboards. I may have just dusted them when they were particularly bad. These are painted white, which seems to show all the dirt. Do you dust or clean your baseboards?