Easy Way to Clean Blinds

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Welcome back to another Cleaning Tip Tuesday. I know I missed the last couple weeks of this series. As I mentioned, I was in the process of switching sites, which was exciting and fun, but there was something else going on behind the scenes: my dad went in for a high-risk, open heart, surgery this past Friday. My thoughts were with him, so this blog took a step aside. I am SO happy to report that my dad’s surgery went very well. I was able to see him yesterday, and he’s able to take short walks around the cardiac unit. Pretty amazing. Whew! Now that I feel a less anxious about that, I feel like I can, once again, pour more energy into the blog.

Today we are talking about getting our blinds clean. There are two types of blinds that tend to be in homes: wood and plastic. We’ll take a look at cleaning each type separately.

Cleaning Wood Blinds

Wood blinds tend to have large, smooth slats that are fairly easy to clean.

Here’s What You’ll Need to Dust Wood Blinds

Image via Casabella

Microfiber Dusting Glove– I have seen people use a sock placed over their hand, however, I’m a big fan of microfiber as it picks up dust better than cotton.

Directions for Cleaning Wood Blinds

The directions for cleaning wood blinds could not be easier.

Simply slip on the dusting glove and grasp one slat at a time, between your thumb and fingers (this way you’re dusting the top and bottom of the slat at the same time). Run your hand along each slat working from top to bottom.

How disgusting is that dust? (Please dust your blinds more often than I do to avoid that much grossness.)

Cleaning Plastic Blinds

Tomorrow is the Master Bedroom reveal for the $100 Room Challenge. One thing I wanted to do was in this room was add window treatments. I decided to go with curtains, so the mini-blinds are staying up (whomp whomp). Sheer curtains just don’t do a great job of keeping light out. Here’s the problem: the mini-blinds in our bedroom are those flimsy plastic ones, and they are r-e-a-l-l-y dirty. While I wish I could grab the same dusting glove as above, plastic blinds tend to be small, and it would be a tedious task to go one slat at a time. So here’s what I did:

Here’s What You’ll Need to Clean Mini-Blinds

Bathtub
Dish Soap
Sponge

Directions for Cleaning Mini-Blinds

Start by taking down your blinds. This should be fairly easy, as there is typically a latch to to release the blinds.

Place the blinds into your bathtub filled with warm soapy water. Swish the blinds around in the tub to loosen the grime, then allow them to soak for 15-30 minutes. After they have soaked, use a sponge and run it along the slats to really get them clean.