It’s moving time for your family, and you are wondering how to go about cleaning your old home before officially handing over the keys. The good news about cleaning your house before an upcoming move is that you can look at it the same way as you would a spring cleaning session.

You’ll clean a little deeper, cover more details than normal, and you’ll make the home shine like you do every spring when it’s ready for a really good scrubbing. There are 5 ways to really get the job done right that you may not have thought of, starting with a good deep clean and remembering to end the job with a great staging job. Take a look at the top 5 tips to help you prep for your move.

Deep clean the home

Start with a good deep cleaning of the home. While you’re used to cleaning the kitchen counter, the dishes, and the sink regularly, you’re probably used to skipping things like the walls and behind the appliances.

Now is the time to hit those surfaces you may have never thought of because someone new is going to be living here now and it’s important to give them a fresh slate from your family’s life here. Wipe down the walls and the trim and the baseboards.

Clean doors and ceilings. Scrub the grout and wash the windows and their treatments. Move appliances and get all of the nooks and crannies. Clean lights and fans. This is the time to really deep clean.

Declutter

You may find that you have too much stuff to move or that you are already imagining your new home is going to be too small to fit all of your things. Nobody wants to go into a new home with clutter. Now is the time to declutter your home and start separating the things you love from the things you aren’t using anymore.

Donate or sell those items so that you can take only the things that make sense into your new home. If you still have to show the home, this will help with all of the traffic coming through and making the house look neat and tidy for a new family to envision living here.

Clean high to low

When you start to clean, make a point to clean from the highest points of a room to the lowest. This way the dirt from up above will fall to the next level down, and you can clean that area next. It’s easy to make a mess on an area after you’ve cleaned it if you work your way from lower to higher areas.

You’ll find when you dust those overhead ceiling fans and lighting fixtures that dust tends to fall down and you wouldn’t want it falling on an already-cleaned surface.

Don’t forget the details

Sometimes you get so used to skipping specific tasks that you forget to do them when the time really calls for it. It’s that time to actually clean every shelf of that fridge and really clean out your oven. Now is the time for details so handle everything from your appliances to your furniture upholstery.

Clean inside the cabinets, wipe down light switches, brush over the tops of doors, clean the carpet, and do both cleaning and polishing on your furniture and wood floors. Don’t leave any details untouched.

Staging

Lastly, spring clean that home by ending the job with proper staging. Make sure you’ve decluttered the home, deep cleaned everything, removed all dirt from overhead, and cleaned every last detail. Now it’s time to stage the house with what items are left that are not personal to the family, such as seating areas and decorative pieces. This will make the home look fresh and ready for the next family to discover.

Use these tips to spring clean for your upcoming move successfully.