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Have you ever spent more than half a day cleaning up your home and preparing it for guests? If yes, then how many times have you managed to make your home neat and spotless? If the answer is “not many” and you can’t understand why your house still looks messy after you’ve cleaned almost everything possibly dirty, then you have come to the right place.
Cleaning isn’t just wiping off the dust, scrubbing corners, and making everything shiny. It also involves the proper organization of items and eliminating certain elements that can give the house a messy feel.
To understand this better, let’s take a look at these 13 issues that might be plaguing your home. We have also discussed some quick and easy solutions to ensure your efforts don’t go to waste and your house becomes a visual treat.
13 Reasons Your House Still Doesn’t Look Clean After You Have Cleaned
1. Shoddy Outlets And Switch Covers
People living in ancestral homes would totally relate to this. You’d spend hours cleaning the floor, furniture, wiping out spills, and whatnot. And yet, the mere sight of a light cover can spoil what would have been a shinier wall.
And it’s not something you can ignore. It can spoil the balance and freshness of your upgraded window shutters, new blinds, plants, and other decor items.
You need to seriously think about replacing these covers, especially if your switch and light covers have paint splattered on them. The white-colored outlets turning almond-colored and looking entirely out of place from the decor is another issue.
But you don’t need to change your wiring to fix this issue. Instead, you can buy inexpensive and modern outlet covers that don’t require any rewiring. All you’d need to do is stick these covers on your existing boards for a clean and bright finish.
The solution would also save you the expensive costs of calling an electrician—even we amateurs can do it quickly. Try to color coordinate your outlet covers with the interiors to ensure it blends in effortlessly.
2. Additional Pillows And Blankets
Cleaning up isn’t just about wiping and dusting the furniture and floor—you should pay special attention to the kind of accessories you have in the room. Even a couple of extra pillows or blankets scattered in an ungraceful fashion can seriously ruin the look of your room.
It will keep looking messy until you set your pillows and blankets right. One way is to fold them up neatly and keep them in a corner. But if your pillows keep sticking out, you might need to hide them somewhere other than plain sight. But small house owners can find it challenging to find a place to store additional blankets and pillows.
No, you don’t need to get rid of the pillows and blankets which might come in handy at times. Instead, you can buy a little storage ottoman with multiple drawers and store your blankets in there. Similarly, having a little mesh basket or so can help you store extra pillows in an organized and neat fashion.
3. Nail Holes In The Wall
This has happened with all of us at least a few times in our lifetime. You drill a hole, hang your frame, clock, or calendar, and it suddenly feels out of place. What do you do? Easy, drill another hole at a more suitable location. But what about the abandoned nail hole? You’d leave it as it is, and it’d play a key role in ruining the ambiance of your room.
The easiest solution is to hang something at that place. It might look out of place, but it would still look clean. Something like a poster would do well because you can balance it out by pasting a few of them in that room.
The other method requires a bit of effort but would let you get rid of any holes in the wall. You’d need a little bit of hole repair primer, paintbrush, putty, and matching paint. Pay extra attention to the paint color, as it might spoil your whole wall if done wrong.
4. Dirty Light Covers
I don’t know about you, but I rarely remember to wipe and dust light covers. Even vacuuming is of not much help—the light covers are bound to look pale and dingy over time. And they can make the whole room look unclean and old. But don’t worry, you don’t need to change these covers.
Instead, take out the removable cover once a year or anytime you notice them looking too dingy, and give them a good soapy bath. They would shine like new soon enough. Make sure to let them dry before putting them back on.
5. Eliminate Grungy Grout
There’s one word for the grout stuck on the tiles, and it’s ‘disgusting’. Grout can spoil an otherwise stylish decor, and no matter how much you scrub, it can still look ugly.
Yes, you can clean away the germs, but the stained grout just won’t go away. Also, redoing the floor is too big an expensive step. But don’t worry. There’s an easy way out also.
You can find effective grout colorant and sealers online as well as at your local store. These come in a variety of colors. You can choose a cleaner that matches your tile’s colors, and apply it on the grout.
Soon enough, you’ll have shinier, cleaner, stain-free tiles that would last another couple of years easily. Moreover, it is super easy to apply, and you won’t need any external help for it.
6. A Cluttered Home
Poorly organized space can never look neat, clean, and peaceful. Yes, there is beauty in chaos but that hardly applies to your house! If you have a lot of random items placed on your dinner table, couch, and bed all the time, these places can never look neat. And for someone like me, it affects the comfort too.
The first step to decluttering your home is to remove unnecessary stuff. Regularly filter out what you need and what you don’t. If you have a baseball bat or a golf kit that you rarely use leaning on your couch or wall, it’s time to remove them from there.
For books and other such items, you can make wall racks or DIY IKEA shelves where you can keep these items in an organized way. You should also put rarely used items in the storeroom because, of course, the lesser things you have, the neater the room looks.
7. Doing Laundry Too Frequently
The habit of doing laundry every day might save you from having to do a lot at the end of the week. But this might be counterintuitive. Because doing laundry every day means you’d need to take out clothes, spin them in cycles, and then hang them out to dry. It makes the house look like quite a mess even if the clothes have become clean.
Try doing your laundry once a week. Just put all the dirty clothes in the laundry basket and forget about doing your laundry until the weekend. This way, you’ll get to spend the whole week in a neat and organized environment.
8. Lots And Lots Of Paper
There is a high chance that your house is cluttered with bills, coupons, pamphlets, mails, catalogs, magazines, and whatnot. You know you’re not going to use that 20% Off coupon you received at the store in the nearby town.
So why keep it? Throw away any useless coupons, mails, invitations, and more—immediately after reading them. Similarly, instead of keeping reminder chits here and there you can also type any reminders on your phone and throw away the paper bits in the trash.
9. Greasy Bottles
Handwash or dish soap bottles can look quite ugly and disgusting if you don’t wash them up properly. The soap and water around them can be a turnoff for any guest that uses them. Moreover, no matter how much you clean the sink, it will look dirty with such a bottle around it.
All you need to do is give the bottle a little wipe down every time it starts looking dirty. And don’t forget to replace the pump bottles once in a while as they lose their shine over time. The small things matter too!
10. Kids’ Toys And Stuff
If you have kids at home, you’d know they don’t just play with their toys—they’ll get their hands on jars, pencil boxes, papers, colors, and whatnot.
You’d need to make your children learn the art of being organized. You might need to be a bit hard on them at times, but they learn quickly. Keep the toy basket in a convenient and reachable place so that they can easily put away their toys once playtime is over.
Similarly, you should keep a shoe rack near the entrance so that your little ones can quickly remove their footwear and place them there whenever they come home. Put a step stool close to the basin to help your child wash his hands before touching any surfaces. You should also try to make your child learn how to actively to do household chores, which will prove valuable later in life.
11. Rug And Furniture Stains
No matter how much you wipe, if your rug has stains, your room will still look dirty. Similarly, having a stained leather couch or sofa would make the cleanest of houses look sloppy.
The best way to clean your carpet is by removing the stain as soon as you see it. The faster you notice it, the quicker you can remove, especially on a rug.
But if a stain has become permanent and is considerably visible, try applying a paste of borax, salt and baking soda on it (1:1:1 ratio). Rub it in well and let it dry. Then you can vacuum this area. If this solution doesn’t work, you’d need to call in a professional for help.
In the case of stained leather furniture, it’s best to buy a leather cleaner. Test the cleaner on a hidden side of the sofa to ensure that it doesn’t react adversely. Having the couch polished can also make it cleaner and shinier.
12. Cracked Or Chipped Countertops And Tables
Are you ignoring the fact that your kitchen countertop or living room center table cracked? Indeed, countertops are expensive items, and we can’t afford to change them now and then just because of a crack.
But if you’re wondering why exactly your kitchen looks ugly despite getting a proper cleanup, the countertop might be the issue. Countertops and center tables are mostly the centre of attention and having a broken one can undoubtedly become a visual turnoff.
If you’re looking for a temporary solution, cover the countertop with a table cloth until you get a new one.
13. Dirty Or Wrinkled Curtains
Curtains become a part of our house as soon as we hang them. But they tend to get dirty and wrinkled over time and will look unappealing. But do you need to change your curtains in such cases?
You can machine wash most fabrics, although there are certain fabrics that shouldn’t be subjected to machine washing—they can permanently lose their sheen. So, it’s essential to check if you can toss your curtains in your washing machine.
You can also wash the curtains by hand and then iron them to remove wrinkles. Your room will suddenly start looking a lot more fresh and neat.
It’s essential to understand that cleaning covers a lot of aspects. It’s critical to organize things properly and even have some extra space in your home. If you want to add extra accessories, plants are the best bet as they fit in naturally. So go ahead and try out the tips mentioned in this article, and most importantly, HAVE FUN!