Freshen up your home with our handy tips and tricks for the new season
Feature Poppy Benner Photo Getty Images
HOW TO... clean curtains and blinds
These often-forgotten areas of your home can soon accumulate dust and grime. Whatever window treatments you have, keep them spick and span with our top cleaning tips…
• Dust your window treatments every two weeks to prevent build-up. Make sure blinds are lowered first, so that they cover the entire window, then dust from the top down. The best tools for this are either a microfibre cloth, a duster, or the upholstery attachment on your vacuum. Don’t forget to dust the back, too!
• Keep Roman blinds in situ when cleaning them, as taking them down is fiddly and the cords can easily become tangled. Once they’ve been dusted as above, spot-treat any stubborn stains with a suitable stain remover and a damp cloth, then carefully run over them with a steam cleaner.
• Kitchen blinds tend to pick up grease, in which case a duster alone won’t quite be enough. Use a damp cloth and a suitable surface cleaner to very gently wipe the slats of Venetian blinds, or use a handheld steam-cleaner for roller blinds.
• Aim to deep-clean your curtains twice a year. Lightweight cotton curtains can usually be machine-washed on a delicate cycle (check the label carefully before doing so), while less resilient fabrics should be handwashed in the bath. Steamcleaning is ideal for heavier fabric curtains, which are likely to get waterlogged if submerged in water.
• Once clean, be sure to air-dry your curtains completely or they could get mouldy. Open up the windows or turn on a dehumidifier to speed up the drying process. If you spot any wrinkles or creases, smooth them out using a handheld steamer, to prevent m
