Spring Cleaning Projects That Will Pay Off in the Long Run

This time of year, the term "spring cleaning" is on the tip of everyone's tongue. While cleaning out your closet and switching up your bedding are great ways to cleanse and prep your home for the season ahead, we decided to take a more macrolevel look at the Spring maintenance homeowners should be doing. For some professional insight, we spoke to Angie's List founder Angie Hicks. People come to her website to find and schedule local, reliable service providers for their home. Here are the six areas Angie says you should deep-clean in the Spring:

Pollen, dirt, and grime build up on your windows throughout the year, making them look icky and block sunlight. In fact, you'll be shocked when you see how much brighter your home is when you're done. It's recommended to clean your windows twice a year, and Angie's says Spring is the perfect time to roll up your sleeves and get to squeegeeing.

Regularly deep cleaning your carpet is a habit worth getting into, and Spring is the perfect time to start. If the floor of your home is covered in carpet, it might be worth hiring a reliable professional from a site like Angie's List. For smaller areas, you can save money by renting a carpet-cleaning machine from a local home and garden store.

Peeling paint is not only an eyesore, but is also bad for your home since paint provides a protective barrier to the surface of your house. Without it, you open your home up to water, mold, mildew, and pests. The Spring is the perfect time to touch up your home's exterior for both its longterm health and attractiveness. "Sometimes that doesn't get viewed as cleaning but oftentimes that is on the list as just a little pick-me-up," Angie explains.

Angie says water is a homeowner's worst enemy and warns that clogged gutters lead to basement water. She recommends doing a gutter clean heading into the Spring rain season. "While it seems like a perfect DIY project, it's the one that we hear most often as causing accidents around the home," she warns, citing falls from ladders as the most common among them.

Angie reminds homeowners to keep up the curb appeal of their home. This is the time of year she says they should take a hard look at their front door — which they often forget to do if they're always entering through the garage or backdoor. Look at the entrance as a guest would, and wipe away any unwelcoming cobwebs or clutter and even give the front door a fresh coat of paint.

Fall and Spring are the perfect time to think about energy efficiency. "You want to make sure that you don't have drafty windows and that the weather-stripping is in good shape around doors and things like that," says Angie. "We think about that a lot more during the Winter because our heating bills are going up, but in the Summer it's your air conditioning."