When you think about dusting your home as part of the weekly household chores, you may not know where to begin or when to stop. After all, dusting can mean simply wiping off wooden, metal, or plastic surfaces, or it may include vacuuming the dust of fabric furniture. Let's focus on non-fabric surfaces.
Beginning in the living or family rooms, start with the large items. Take a clean dust cloth and lightly spray it with furniture polish or dust remover. Take away everything like newspapers, mail, and dishes from atop furniture items like the piano, end tables, and desk. Wipe these surfaces clear of dust, allowing the cloth to linger on grooves, edges, and contours to remove all lint and hair. Don't forget to wipe down the legs, sides, handles, or other extensions of such furniture.
Next, move on to the dining room and dust the table, if uncovered, and all seating chairs, using a fresh application of furniture polish after folding the cleaning cloth. Also run the cloth over the buffet or china cabinet, wall shelves, window frames, and picture frames. Look for moldings, baseboards, and door trim along with the doors themselves that might benefit from a dusting. Do the same thing in the kitchen, though there may be less furniture to dust there. Take care not to move dust around food or cooking pans.
In the bedrooms, remove everything from the tops of dressers and chests of drawers. Dust top surfaces, sides, fronts, and feet, as well as their backs if you can get to them against the wall. Don't forget closet doors, door moldings, wall hangings, and baseboards, along with other bedroom furniture like quilt racks, beside tables and radio clocks, or hope chests.
In your bathroom, the dust-covered surfaces may include medicine cabinets, counter space, storage cupboards, window and door moldings, bathtub casings, towel racks, wall décor, shower bars, potted plants, and more baseboards. Laundry baskets or hampers should be cleaned separately, as they require special antibacterial attention. Fixtures like the toilet paper holder, toothbrush holder, and soap dish may need to be dusted as well.
Attach a clean cloth over a dust mop or broom to reach high places, such as light shades or coverings, ceiling fans, and wall hangings or decorator items.
Occasionally you may want to place a clean cloth, without furniture polish, on a clean dust mop and wipe down every wall in the house. Perhaps yearly you can think about washing walls, but that's another story.
In other rooms, be sure to dust chairs and their feet, exercise equipment, storage areas, and files or records. Be careful with smoke alarms and monitors. Dust picture or award glass frames with a clean cloth minus the polish. Throughout the house dust window sills, shelves, clocks, and other miscellaneous items.
Keeping your home dust-free will help keep your family healthy by reducing or eliminating allergens and omitting bacteria that can be spread through manual contact. Dust your home weekly for best results, adding a little extra shine to the nicer wood pieces. Then kick back and enjoy your lovely, clean home!
