How to Spring-Clean Like a 1950s Housewife

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Spring is here! Or close enough that many a vintage housewife is starting to consider her spring cleaning plans. So just in case you want to know how to REALLY THOROUGHLY clean a home, vintage-style, here’s the complete, step-by-step list of cleaning tasks that a 1950s housewife would have followed.

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As one of those vintage housewives who feels a deep, intense satisfaction from having a REALLY TRULY clean home at least twice a year, I spring- and fall-clean, rather than taking the seasonal jobs and doing one or two a month. But, if you hate spring cleaning, then the best way to handle deep cleaning is to have a really good daily and weekly cleaning routine, divide the seasonal jobs and do perhaps 1 each week, or 2-3 a month, and tackle the seasonal jobs at the beginning of each quarter.

Spring Cleaning Preliminaries

It is not fair to tear the whole house apart all at once and get into a muddle doing everything all at once. Doing one room at a time creates the least household upset. Your goal is NOT to make everyone miserable while you get the house clean — that kind of spring cleaning has been a joke among husbands and householders for centuries.

Make a written plan listing the jobs to be done, times to be allowed, and the days for accomplishment. Make sure to give yourself plenty of time. When I had babies, for instance, or when I was pregnant, I gave myself 2 weeks to finish a relatively small house, so that I could rest or take care of littles as needed. When you have made your work schedule, leave room for making notes on how long each job actually takes, so you have a record for making your spring cleaning schedule the next year.

Make sure that all of your tools are in good working order before you begin. Lay in a generous supply of soaps, polishes, rags, cleaners, dusters, etc.

Order of Work For Spring Cleaning

Closets and Bureau Drawers

The first job to be covered is dealing with seasonal clothing changes and cleaning the closets and dresser drawers:

  • Start by clearing out all the clostes and bureau drawers
  • Clean the closets
    • Wash the walls and shelves
    • Mothproof the closet
    • Line the shelves
  • Clean the bureau drawers
    • Clean and mothproof the drawers
    • Line the drawers
  • Take care of your clothes
    • Check, mend and clean clothes
    • Store unseasonable clothes and take out seasonable ones
    • Brush and air all the clothes that are going back into the closets and drawers without cleaning
    • Mothproof all the clothes — especially the ones to store away!
    • Dispose of unwanted clothes.
  • Put everything away

Home Furnishings

Now, you’ll take care of all the soft furnishings in the house. These are things like blankets, draperies, rugs, slipcovers — even furniture!

  • Wash and mothproof winter blankets, quilts, and bedding, and pack away for the summer.
  • Get out and air summer blankets and bedding.
  • Collect draperies, curtains, slipcovers, throw pillows, dressing table skirts, and other soft furnishings to be laundered or dry cleaned so that they will be ready to put back by the time the room has been thoroughly cleaned.
  • Send out rugs to be professionally cleaned and mothproofed.

Clean the Basement

If you have a game room or lounge in the basement, then clean it according to the living room instructions while you clean the main part of the house.

  • Remove all the trash
  • Clean the ceiling, walls, and floor.
  • Refinish the walls if necessary

Clean the Attic

These are also the instructions also apply to any of your storage areas! Although these vintage instructions don’t include the garden, garage, or any of those outdoor areas, mostly because those were considered the husband’s domain.

  • Attend to any ncessary repacking or reorganizing
  • Remove all the trash
  • Clean the ceiling, walls, and floor

Clean the Living Room

Use these same instructions for family room, den, library, game room, parlor — any room that doesn’t have special instructions of its own, like dining room, bedrooms, kitchen, bathrooms.

  • Clean hearth and fireplace by vacuuming the ashes (not with a regular vacuum!), scrubbing the bricks, washing and polishing the mantle.
  • Clean books by removing them from shelves carefully cleaning each book, cleaning and polishing each shelf, and replacing the books.
  • Empty cabinets and drawers, wash shelves and clean and reline drawers. Take stock, inspect, and sort accessories, bric-a-brac, etc.. Wash/clean or renovate as necessary. Return items to cabinets and drawers.
  • Wash walls and clean wallpaper.
  • Wash and polish windows, sills, baseboards, woodwork.
  • Wash or otherwise thoroughly clean window shades, blinds, etc. Take down storm windows and doors, wash, and store. Brush screens and put up.
  • Clean spots and stains from upholstery; send out to be renovated if necessary.
  • Clean and polish wood furniture; repair or renovate as needed.
  • Clean, wax, and polish floors; shampoo wall-to-wall carpeting.
  • Clean and polish mirrors, picture glass, picture frames, lamps, lampshades, and metal fixtures.
  • Hang clean curtains and draperies. Adjust clean slipcovers and pillows. Lay clean rugs.

Clean The Dining Room

  • Empty cabinets and drawers, wash shelves and clean and reline drawers. Take stock, inspect, and sort dishes, linens, bric-a-brac, etc.. Wash dishes and bric-a-brac. Air linens. Polish silver.
  • Wash walls and clean wallpaper.
  • Wash and polish windows, sills, baseboards, woodwork.
  • Wash or otherwise thoroughly clean window shades, blinds, etc. Take down storm windows and doors, wash, and store. Brush screens and put up.
  • Clean spots and stains from upholstery; send out to be renovated if necessary.
  • Clean and polish wood furniture; repair or renovate as needed.
  • Clean, wax, and polish floors; shampoo wall-to-wall carpeting.
  • Clean and polish mirrors, picture glass, picture frames, lamps, lampshades, and metal fixtures.
  • Hang clean curtains and draperies. Adjust clean slipcovers and pillows. Lay clean rugs. Return dishes, linens, silver, and bric-a-brac to proper places.

Clean the Bedrooms

  • Empty cabinets and drawers, wash shelves and clean and reline drawers. Take stock, inspect, and sort accessories, bric-a-brac, etc.. Wash/clean or renovate as necessary.
  • Wash walls and clean wallpaper.
  • Wash and polish windows, sills, baseboards, woodwork.
  • Wash or otherwise thoroughly clean window shades, blinds, etc. Take down storm windows and doors, wash, and store. Brush screens and put up.
  • Clean spots and stains from upholstery; send out to be renovated if necessary.
  • Clean and polish wood furniture; repair or renovate as needed.
  • Clean, wax, and polish floors; shampoo wall-to-wall carpeting.
  • Clean the bed
    • Remove bedding, matress, and springs.
    • Dust bed frame throughly, using the vacuum.
    • Clean or wash and polish bed frame.
    • Clean mattress with vacuum, sun and air if possible.
    • Clean bedspring with vacuum.
  • Clean and polish mirrors, picture glass, picture frames, lamps, lampshades, and metal fixtures.
  • Hang clean curtains and draperies. Adjust clean slipcovers and dressing table skirt. Lay clean rug. Replace springs and matress and remake bed. Return items to cabinets and drawers.

Halls and Stairs

Halls and stairs are cleaned using the same instructions as the living room. Do the upstairs hall after the bedrooms, and then the downstairs hall last of all.

Final Touches

Neither the bathrooms nor the kitchen are covered in spring cleaning because both are cleaned thoroughly once or twice a week in vintage cleaning routines. Weekly, the bathroom floors and walls are WASHED, the hamper is washed and sunned, the medicine cabinet is washed and cleaned out. in the kitchen, the walls, woodwork, work surfaces, and cabinet exteriors are washed, the ceiling and light fixtures are dusted, garbage pails, vegetable bins and bread and cake boxes are washed, scalded and sunned, and the floor is washed and waxed weekly. In both rooms, curtains are washed and ironed at least once a month. The kitchen cabinets and drawers are all sorted and cleaned out in rotation on a weekly basis, receiving attention at least once a month.

And that’s it! That is how a vintage housewife spring cleans! It’s also how she cleans in autumn, with the addition of scheduling chimney cleaning and furnace cleaning and maintenance, and taking down and storing window screens. In summer, she’ll put up awnings, and in winter, she’ll put up storm windows and doors.

Do you plan this sort of spring cleaning?

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4 thoughts on “How to Spring-Clean Like a 1950s Housewife”

  1. Heather Goddard

    How do you do all this with kids underfoot? I don’t have a large home but struggle to even accomplish part of this with four underfoot.

    1. I keep my littles with me and allow extra time. I plan snacks, judicious use of entertainment (movies and shows, audiobooks), and I keep them on their usual schedule. My older children (school-aged) follow their normal schedules but help with the heavier chores.

      It helps to give yourself 3x as much time as you think you should need with 4 small children underfoot. Vintage care for small children required a minimum of 5 hours a day, and with more children, even tho you can combine some care tasks, you shouldn’t plan more than 4 hours each day for your spring cleaning — 2 of any of your littles have special needs.

  2. Thanks so much for this. This is my first spring cleaning since my multiple sclerosis diagnosis, so I am relying more on my grown daughters to help me as I am still recovering from my first major attack. We’re also planning a move this summer, so this list is extremely helpful for me (MS can cause forgetfulness and cognitive fatigue) and my girls (two have ADHD and need lists and reminders, especially when their medication wears off later in the day). I was already feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of doing this all. This gives me a template to work from as we purge, clean, and pack.

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