|
|
|
Spring Cleaning
By Janet Bennett
Washingtonpost.com Staff
Wednesday, March 29, 2000
|
|
|
|
|
|
The dust bunnies under your bed have reached new levels; you're having trouble finding your bills, let alone paying them. Your laundry is piled sky high, and clutter is a euphemism for the state of your closet. If you're feeling the urge to make a clean sweep of your floors and everything else, it's just doin' what comes naturally. As much as cherry-blossom watching, spring cleaning is a major rite of this season of renewal and rebirth. So, just in the nick of time, we come to the rescue with an arsenal of tips and tools for helping you regroup, reorganize and give birth to a new, improved you. Try our selection of stylish picker-uppers that help you not only clean up but also look good in the process.
Pack an old-fashioned-looking enamel wooden-handle bucket ($15) with checkered cotton dish towels ($4 each) from Portugal, wacky spun plastic orange scrubbers named after Phyllis Diller (for a mere 75 cents each) and a dish brush by Koziol named Tim, and make light of housework. From Home Rule (1807 14th St. NW; 202/797-5544).
If, like us, you're sick of your sickly old vacuum, try some powerful dust busting with Restoration Hardware's Metro Vac 'N Blo'. It will literally blow away the competition. (Think of a leaf blower, but indoors.) Plus, this handy and handsome black-enameled steel picker-upper is light in weight and price: only $149.
If you're the kind of person who can't bear to be separated from your newspapers before recycling day, keep them close at hand but stylishly stored in Rexite's magazine rack, which is available in trendy I-Mac colors and holds a week's worth of newspapers. Find it at Apartment Zero for $175.
Lawyer and philosopher Cheryl Mendelsohn's "Home Comforts: The Art & Science of Keeping House" ($35, Scribner, 1999) has brought new respect, shall we say cool, to the much-maligned skills of housekeeping. Implicit in the instructions and explanations about linen folding, ironing and caring for fine china is the idea that doing it well matters not only for its own sake but for the sake of peace and order in our homes and our lives. Helpful hints from Heloise, this is not.
(Photos by Reginald A. Pearman Jr./washingtonpost.com)
|
|
• 