CLEANING UP AFTER THE HOLIDAYS

CLEANING UP AFTER THE HOLIDAYS

The holidays can do a number on your home! Between house guests, holiday feasts, and kids on school breaks, your house probably need some TLC. Try these tips to clean up and start New Year off on a sparkling clean foot.

Clean Up After House Guests
Give your house’s surfaces a deep clean. Wash all your linens. Vacuum carpets, floors, and baseboards to give yourself a fresh start. Clean out your refrigerator – eat the last of those yummy leftovers and then clean and store your leftover containers.

Clean up Christmas Tree Sap
Rubbing alcohol can remove sap from washable clothing, knit gloves, and rugs, because it acts as a solvent. For clothes, even a down coat, saturate the area with alcohol, let sit for a minute, then launder in warm water with regular detergent. Heat sets stains, so be sure all the sap is gone before using the dryer. Repeat the process if any remains. For sap on a wool coat or leather gloves, the dry cleaner is your best bet. For a rug, spot-test first, then apply alcohol with a cloth; blot with clean parts of the cloth until the sap is gone. Check for recycling services in your community so your tree can be a gift back to Mother Nature that keeps on giving for many years.

Clean and Store Holiday Decorations
How many of us have opened up a box of holiday decorations in November only to find a tangled mess of half-broken lights? Set yourself up for success next year by carefully cleaning and storing your decorations. As you take your decorations down, clean them and store them in closed bins, boxes or plastic bags that are clearly marked. While specialized storage containers may seem like an extravagance, they are designed to keep treasured decorations safe from dust, mold and breakage. If possible, group the decorations in categories like “dining room,” “mantel,” “front door,” etc. That way, you can avoid the decorating frenzy by tackling your home one area at a time.

Prepare For The Rest Of Winter
The holidays may be over but winter probably isn’t! If you live in a cold climate, make sure your home is ready for a few more months of snow and mud. Keep a boot tray near the door for rain or snow soaked footwear. Put mats and throw rugs at all entryways. This will help prevent dirt from being tracked into your home. Before you know it, it’ll be time for spring cleaning!

Having said that, if relaxing after a busy holidays is more your style, our teams of professional cleaners are ready to take care of the hard work for you. Book a clean today and leave the rest up to us – Treat yourself and your home! Tidy Up Angels has been providing residential cleaning service to the Overland Park area since 2008. Trusting someone to clean your home can be a little unnerving. If this is your first time hiring a cleaning company, we want you to know that you can relax with Tidy Up Angels. Our company is fully insured and bonded; safeguarding your most personal possessions. Honesty, integrity, and good work ethics are the back bone of our company. We aim to meet all your expectations and we hope to exceed them during each service. Let us know how we can help with your house cleaning services in Overland Park and how we can help you – contact Tidy Up Angels LLC at 913-642-2006.

12 Days of Christmas: How to Clean Your Home Before the Big Day

12 Days of Christmas: How to Clean Your Home Before the Big Day

The holiday season can get hectic. There are gifts to buy, parties to attend and if you’re hosting this year, getting the house ready can be a real stressor. This 12-day checklist will help you get your home in order just in time for Christmas. Start on Dec. 13 for a house that will shine, and revisit any spots that may need a touch up before the big day.

Day 1: Get the Guest Bedroom Ready
If guests are staying overnight, get the guest bedroom ready first so you don’t have to worry about it later. Dust surfaces and baseboards, vacuum, wash linens and make the bed and put out any extras to make their stay more comfortable, such as towels and wash cloths.

Day 2: The Laundry Room
You’ll be doing a lot of laundry over the holidays so now is the time to get the laundry room prepped and ready for battle. Wipe down shelves and appliances, organize the cabinets and make sure you’re stocked up on supplies.

Day 3: Kids’ Bedrooms
Next, tackle the kids’ bedrooms. Get your kids to help with putting toys and books away and throwing out any trash. Vacuum and dust, put laundry away and make the bed. To get them to keep their room clean throughout the season and help relieve some cleaning stress, offer an incentive such as a family movie night or a trip to their favorite sledding hill.

Day 4: The Front Closet/Mudroom
How organized is your front closet or mudroom? Make sure all items have a place to hang and boots and shoes are in their proper bin. Mop the floors.

Day 5: The Master Bedroom
When the holidays get stressful, you’ll want a place where you can retreat and relax, so make sure your bedroom is clean and tidy. Vacuum and dust all surfaces, change the bed linens and make sure all laundry is picked up and put away. Declutter horizontal surfaces.

Day 6: The Hallways
Make sure the hallways are vacuumed or swept and wipe down the walls if needed. Touch up any paint and make sure artwork is dusted and hung properly.

Day 7: The Master Bathroom
Get out the cleaning supplies and spend some time cleaning the master bathroom. Wipe down the walls, mop the floors and wash rugs and towels. Sanitize the counter and sink and scrub the shower and toilet. It may be your bathroom, but with a house full of guests, it’s quite likely others will be using it!

Day 8: The Kitchen
Since people like to congregate in the kitchen during Christmas, make sure your kitchen is ready. Take the time to wash down the walls and cabinets and clean appliances, including inside the refrigerator and oven. Make sure your dishwasher is working properly so it’s ready for all those dirty dishes. Sanitize countertops and organize the pantry.

Day 9: The Living Room
Declutter the living room and make sure all trash is picked up. Recycle newspapers and magazines. Water plants if needed. Dust all surfaces and wash curtains or wipe down blinds. Vacuum or mop.

Day 10: The Dining Room
Make sure you’ll have enough seats at the table for Christmas dinner. Dust surfaces and mop floors. Wash tablecloths and placemats. Make sure you have enough wine glasses, plates and flatware for the big meal.

Day 11: The Main Bathroom
Now is the time to make sure all other bathrooms are ready. Sanitize the sink and countertop and scrub the toilet and shower. Mop the floor and wipe down walls. Make sure the bathroom is stocked with toilet paper, towels and any other toiletries guests may need.

Day 12: Christmas Clutter
Have a plan for all that Christmas clutter that seems to multiply before your eyes. Put recycle bins in an easy-to-access spot, have trash bags ready and have a designated spot to keep all those gifts before they’re placed under the tree.

Our teams of professional cleaners are ready to take care of the hard work for you. Book a clean today and leave the rest up to us – Treat yourself and your home! Tidy Up Angels has been providing residential cleaning service to the Overland Park area since 2008. Trusting someone to clean your home can be a little unnerving. If this is your first time hiring a cleaning company, we want you to know that you can relax with Tidy Up Angels. Our company is fully insured and bonded; safeguarding your most personal possessions. Honesty, integrity, and good work ethics are the back bone of our company. We aim to meet all your expectations and we hope to exceed them during each service. Let us know how we can help with your house cleaning services in Overland Park and how we can help you – contact Tidy Up Angels LLC at 913-642-2006.

Getting Your Kitchen Back in Shape After Thanksgiving

Getting Your Kitchen Back in Shape After Thanksgiving

Preparing for Thanksgiving is by no means a one-day affair. If you’re hosting, you’ve been getting your house and kitchen ready, and spent days making lists, shopping, and cooking.
Once the feasting is over, the last thing you want to do is spend hours cleaning up—and you shouldn’t have to! Here’s our fail-proof, get-it-done method for getting your kitchen back in shape so you can relax.

First, Your New Motto:
Four Words: Clean as You Go
This should be a standard working-in-the-kitchen habit, but when you’re making large portions of multiple dishes, the principle will save you from epic messes and keep your kitchen running smoothly even as you’re still cooking.

Get a Helper, if You Need to – Solicit the help of a friend or family member who can wash dishes while you’re cooking. This will save you time and energy, and you’ll be giving someone who wants to help the opportunity to be useful and keep you company while you’re working.

When it comes time to clean after your meal, let everyone who wants to lend a helping hand. But don’t be afraid to communicate how you want things done: If your china doesn’t go in the dish washer, let your helpers know how to handle it or give them another task.

The After-Thanksgiving Plan
1. Clear the table
First things first: Clear the table thoroughly. This is an easy way to have others pitch in.

2. Put away leftovers
Besides the food safety reasons for not leaving food out for too long, getting the leftovers put away first thing allows you to move on to the next step of sorting the types of dishes you will need to wash.

3. Soak pots and pans
Inevitably, there will be some cooking items that you weren’t able to “clean as you went.” Soak difficult-to-clean pots, pans, and any empty serving dishes that are aren’t being used to store leftovers. Depending on your kitchen’s layout, consider setting these soaking dishes on the stove top while you address everything else. (And just in case you need it, we have some tips for cleaning burnt or scorched pans.)

4. Hand wash and load the dishwasher
While heavily soiled dishes are soaking, tackle the rest of the pile. You’re going to batch process so everything goes as quickly as possible.

Having said that, if relaxing after a busy Thanksgiving is more your style, our teams of professional cleaners are ready to take care of the hard work for you. Book a clean today and leave the rest up to us – Treat yourself and your home! Tidy Up Angels has been providing residential cleaning service to the Overland Park area since 2008. Trusting someone to clean your home can be a little unnerving. If this is your first time hiring a cleaning company, we want you to know that you can relax with Tidy Up Angels. Our company is fully insured and bonded; safeguarding your most personal possessions. Honesty, integrity, and good work ethics are the back bone of our company. We aim to meet all your expectations and we hope to exceed them during each service. Let us know how we can help with your house cleaning services in Overland Park and how we can help you – contact Tidy Up Angels LLC at 913-642-2006.

Hosting Thanksgiving this year?

Hosting Thanksgiving this year?

Turkey, stuffing, and sides may be front and center but behind the scenes, what makes for a seamlessly-hosted Thanksgiving gathering is the preparation that comes beforehand.

We’ve got some good hosting and cleaning tips to keep in your back pocket along the way. Don’t leave everything to the last minute — break up the tasks into manageable chunks divided by room over the course of 3 days so you’ll leave enough time to tend to the green bean casserole and tackle the turkey on Thanksgiving day.

Here’s a checklist to ensure you’ll be ready for your guests:

3 Days Before Thanksgiving: Declutter Your Space

  • Walk through the common areas where guests will be mingling and declutter the space. Use your laundry hamper to store away all the miscellaneous odds and ends floating around or stacked up around your home. Tuck the laundry hamper away and out of sight in a laundry room, closet, garage, or basement.
  • Mop the floor and dust between all the small nooks and crannies and dusty corners. Be sure not to miss harder to reach spots like under furniture and fragile items on the top of bookshelves and around fan blades.
  • Good Tip: Break up tasks and enlist your family members to make cleaning more manageable. This goes for any of the days leading up to and including Thanksgiving day. Cleaning is more enjoyable when it’s a team activity! Kids can be enlisted to help the adults with their own sized “broom” set.

2 Days Before Thanksgiving: Clean the Bathroom

  • Give the toilet bowl a good scrub down.
  • Arrange and organize any loose bathroom items around the sink and neatly arrange your toiletries in the shower.
  • Do a deep clean of the shower or bathtub.
  • Squeegee the shower walls and mirrors.
  • Refill your bathroom soap dispensers.
  • Good Tip: If you have a medicine cabinet, tuck away anything you want to keep from curious uncles or aunts (we all have at least one!) who may be tempted to snoop.

The Day Before Thanksgiving: Prepare the Kitchen

  • Clean out the fridge! Throw out any old takeout or expired items to make room for all the food you’re preparing and also accommodate any desserts that guests will be bringing.
  • Same goes for the freezer—purge frostbitten, forgotten items to make room for ice because the key to a good party is ice. Fill your ice cube trays.
  • Give your kitchen surfaces and appliances a wipe down with household cleaner
  • Get into all the nooks and grooves around your sink and under the grates of your stovetop with a good brush and scraper set.
  • Vegetables need cleaning too. Take some of the food prep load off on Thanksgiving Day by cleaning your veggies the day before.
  • Make sure all of your soap dispensing dish brushes and scrubs are filled with soap.
  • Start chilling your white and rosé wines in the fridge.
  • Take out your garbage and recycling.
  • Sweep around the kitchen
  • Good Tip: Tie a string around your best bottle opener and tie to a drawer handle so it doesn’t walk off during the festivities. People forget to return the bottle opener and this way you won’t be asked about the location of the opener by every member of your family.

The Big Day: The Finishing Touches

  • Using household cleaning solutions give all the surfaces in your living room, bathroom, and kitchen a final polish.
  • Line your trash cans and recycling bins with fresh liners and label them with post-its or masking tape so guests know which one is which.
  • Hang fresh towels in the bathroom.
  • Leave glassware out on the counter so guests can help themselves.
  • Cut lemon and lime wedges for cocktails.
  • Set the table and focus on food and drink preparation.
  • Good Tip: A dishwasher can handle volume but a dish rack that can hold its own will come in handy, especially for items that are not dishwasher safe. As a rule of thumb, anything with sharp blades should be washed and dried by hand. When your dishwasher or dish rack aren’t enough to hold the influx of inbound dishes, it’s time to call in the back-up! Pull out a drying mat for drying larger dishware and bakeware.

How are you planning to prepare for Thanksgiving? We think stocking the freezer with a few freeze-and-bake dishes will make hosting a little easier.

Having said that our teams of professional cleaners are ready to take care of the hard work for you. Book a clean today and leave the rest up to us – Treat yourself and your home! Tidy Up Angels has been providing residential cleaning service to the Overland Park area since 2008. Trusting someone to clean your home can be a little unnerving. If this is your first time hiring a cleaning company, we want you to know that you can relax with Tidy Up Angels. Our company is fully insured and bonded; safeguarding your most personal possessions. Honesty, integrity, and good work ethics are the back bone of our company. We aim to meet all your expectations and we hope to exceed them during each service. Let us know how we can help with your house cleaning services in Overland Park and how we can help you – contact Tidy Up Angels LLC at 913-642-2006.

POST-HALLOWEEN PARTY CLEANING TIPS

POST-HALLOWEEN PARTY CLEANING TIPS

What’s not to love about Halloween? If you’re anything like me, you’ll be thinking about when to plan your trip to the pumpkin patch, what costume you’ll be wearing and (most importantly) what movies you’ll be watching throughout the spooky season well before October 31st rolls around. When it’s finally time to unleash the Halloween fun, there’s another very important thing that we mustn’t forget – the party! If you’ve put your hand up to host this year’s Halloween soiree, be prepared to put in a little elbow grease when the dust (glitter? fake blood?) has settled. The below tips will help to guide you along while cleaning up any aftermath of your ghoulish gathering:

CANDY
Not just a delicious treat! Did you know that candy also doubles as a sticky mess of a ‘decorative’ item? If the candy you’ve left out has made its way to walls, furniture or floors, you’ll need to get to it ASAP to avoid any potential stains. First, mix a dash of dish soap and a cup of warm water and blot the stain with a clean cloth. If that doesn’t work, mix one-third vinegar and two-thirds warm water – blot once again and then scrape off any remains.

PUMPKIN
Did you leave your pumpkin to sit outside or in the window for a litle longer than it should have? Jack-o’-lantern guts is one of the easier Halloween messes to get rid of. Just get a spoon and scrape up as much as you can, then get out the trusty dish soap and water mixture once again and give the rest a good scrub.

TRICK OR TREAT!! (AND THEY WENT WITH TRICK)
Were you terrorized by a gang of 4-feet tall mischief makers in costume? Toilet Paper in the trees? Easy. Just wrap the end of a stick in duct tape and go to town – just do it before it rains or you’re going to have some serious papier-mache on your hands. Victim of a good old-fashioned egging? Just pick up any egg-shells before hosing off cars or porches and remove any leftover residue by resting a cloth soaked in half-water, half-vinegar on the mark for 15 minutes before wiping it down with a second clean cloth. Good as new.

GLITTER
There’s a saying about two things being certain in life – death and taxes. This is incorrect. It clearly fails to mention life’s third certainty, that is, you will absolutely be finding glitter in places you never thought possible for months, years and maybe even decades after you use it. Use a vacuum to get as much of it out of the way as possible, and life hack: a ball of play dough, lint-rollers or a bundle of tape will work a charm in picking up any sparkles that won’t budge from your floors.

Depending on what your guests decided to dress up as (and how they decided to behave), the list could go on and on. A roaring party can have an aftermath that isn’t too dissimilar to a horror movie, and even the mellowest of Halloween parties aren’t safe from a little wine spillage. But like any type of cleaning, the sooner you do it, the sooner your place will be back to its sparkling best.

Having said that, if relaxing after a busy Halloween is more your style, our teams of professional cleaners are ready to take care of the hard work for you. Book a clean today and leave the rest up to us – Treat yourself and your home! Tidy Up Angels has been providing residential cleaning service to the Overland Park area since 2008. Trusting someone to clean your home can be a little unnerving. If this is your first time hiring a cleaning company, we want you to know that you can relax with Tidy Up Angels. Our company is fully insured and bonded; safeguarding your most personal possessions. Honesty, integrity, and good work ethics are the back bone of our company. We aim to meet all your expectations and we hope to exceed them during each service. Let us know how we can help with your house cleaning services in Overland Park and how we can help you – contact Tidy Up Angels LLC at 913-642-2006.