Cleaning Your Porch for the Season

Unfortunately, the porch tends to collect dirt, dust, pollen, and junk over time, so go ahead and jump into doing a little outdoor house cleaning to get the most from your porch this season!

The porch-cleaning checklist at Real Simple helps organize the process; here's a closer look at some of the things they suggest:

Step #1: Clear the Porch. This is a straightforward (and very fast) job: just move everything off of the porch into the yard. This way, you can clean the entire porch and each of the items throughly and enjoy them that much more!

Step #2: Wash Everything. Now that all of your things are in the yard, grab some soapy water and the water hose and wash the dirt, dust, and grime off of everything. If you have some stubborn green or mildewed spots, spray some vinegar on them, let them sit, then wipe them off later. 

Rinse everything and leave to dry in the yard while you finish the rest of the porch.

Step #3: Dust. Starting at the top (an extendable duster is best, but a smaller outdoor broom can do the job as well!), work your way down and around the porch, dusting off as much dust, pollen, and cobwebs as you can. 

Step #4: Sweep & Wash the Porch. Grab your outdoor broom and start sweeping off all of the dust and dirt that has collected on the porch itself. The goal is to get all of the pieces of plant debris, rocks, and dirt off as preparation for washing, so if it doesn't look very clean yet, that's okay!

Once it's all swept, grab a water hose and spray down the porch, spraying towards the edge to knock off anything that got missed in sweeping. If your porch is really dirty, go ahead and grab the same soap and water mixture from before and scrub the dirtier spots before rinsing with the hose.

Step #5: Dry & Replace. Once everything is completely dry, grab all of your items from the yard and place them back on your porch. Then grab a seat, sit back, and enjoy the day from your freshly-cleaned porch!