DNAinfo.com: Freshen Up Your Apartment With These Expert Spring Cleaning Tips

Maeve offers up her top apartment spring cleaning tips to DNAinfo.com.

As originally featured in Freshen Up Your Apartment With These Expert Spring Cleaning Tips by Irene Plagianos for DNAinfo.com

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Deal With Your Windows First

Cleaning windows and clearing away windowsills is a great way to start the process of lightening up your apartment, experts said.

“Spring should be all about celebrating the sunshine that we’ve all been missing, so really let it in to your home,” said organizer Jeni Aron. “Time to clean the dust and grime away.”

Washing your windows, inside — and out if you can — is an easy means to make your apartment feel brighter.

Deal With Your Windows First

Clearing windows, and windowsills, throwing out wintry knickknacks, lingering magazines or never-read books that might be taking up space, is a “small, simple and impactful” way to start a larger deep-clean, organizer Maeve Richmond said. #startsmall

Purge, Purge, Purge

Experts said it's often not easy for people to throw things out, or give them away, but, ultimately, the process of purging and organizing helps you “live with more clarity,” Aron said.

People often have a hard time with certain items like gifts, for example, that they may feel guilty about throwing away. But, experts said, you should say thank you to the gift and the sentiment behind it, then let it go if its just taking up needed space.

Purge, Purge, Purge

“If you thought about everything in your home as living, breathing and alive — would it be worthy of a space, where space is already a commodity,” Richmond said. “Treat the things you have well, and let go of the things you can no longer keep.” #bringittolife

Take the Cleaning in Small Chunks

Cleaning and organizing can be a big process — from your closets to your kitchen cabinets — there can be a lot of switching out and throwing, or packing, away. But experts say it's important to just take it in manageable chunks.

Aron likes working in three-hour blocks of time. She suggests being strategic about which area you clean first. Another one of our experts, Richmond, likes to start with the front hallway.

“It’s a place that might be filled with winter coats, boots, and a heap of wintery things you’ve been letting pile up,” she said.

Take the Cleaning in Small Chunks

“Clearing that all away lets you come home without that overwhelming ‘ugh I have to clean’ feeling every time you walk through the door.” #springcleaning

Whatever you do, it's important you do something, and start now, experts said.

"Think of spring cleaning as the start of bikini season for your home," Aron said with a laugh. "Keeping organized is really like weight management, once you get it off, you've got to work at it."