Cleaning Up After Your Home Renovation: Everything You Need To Know
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Renovating your home is a messy business. It involves a lot of dust, power tools running constantly and people walking in and out of your home. Once the renovation is complete, you may want to kick back, relax and enjoy your beautifully renovated new home. But first things first—you’re going to need to do a top-to-bottom clean to ensure you get rid of all the dust before it gets into your air ducts.
Check your contract with your contractor—extensive cleaning isn’t usually a part of a contract. More often than not, contractors will include a “broom-sweep” in their contracts. That means they will vacuum the place and do a quick Swiffer or dusting of the place. If your contract does include a deep clean, that’s great. If it’s something you’d like your contractor to take care of, speak to them beforehand to have it included in your contract. Keep in mind that this may incur additional costs.
If you decide to go the route of taking care of the cleaning yourself, kudos! Right after the renovation is a great time. It allows you to take advantage of the fact that your furniture is out of the house or moved to a corner and covered in plastic. Part of the job is done for you already!
But what else will you need to do to ensure that your newly renovated home is spic and span? We’ve put together a checklist so you can ensure you enjoy your home to its fullest.
Clean your walls, including all molding. If you didn’t paint, wipe the walls down with a damp towel. If your walls are newly painted, stick to a simple dry dusting to preserve the paint job. Are your walls wallpapered? Use a wet cloth and don’t forget to do a spot check to make sure you don’t damage the wallpaper.
Sweep and/or vacuum all the surfaces in your home. This includes the ceilings.
Mop all wood, tile and linoleum floors after vacuuming. Be sure to use a good, disinfectant cleaner.
Make sure to vacuum all of your furniture. From your couches to your mattresses, give everything a good vacuum with the upholstery attachment even if it was covered in plastic during the renovation.
With a damp cloth, wipe down all wood or metal furniture, knickknacks, door knobs and other items in your home.
If they weren’t already removed, take down all light fixtures and clean them.
Clean inside all of your closets, cabinets and shelves to ensure there is no dust.
Give your bathroom and kitchen a thorough wipe-down with a sanitizer.
Dust and wipe-down all windows and window sills.
Remove all of your vents and clean them with warm, soapy water.
Replace any exposed air filters with fresh ones before replacing the vent covers.
If this isn’t something you feel like doing yourself, there are a lot of great services that specialize in after-renovation cleaning. But keep in mind that this will undoubtedly add to the cost of your renovation. The cost will be dependant on the size of your home, so you should get some quotes and build this into your budget.
So whether you take on the work yourself or outsource the job, the effort or the price tag will be well worth it!
