Spring cleaning the Victorian way...

Well spring cleaning has arrived at our house , one room at a time.
Having done much research into this area I am inclined to imagine that most of you cringe at the thought of a true Victorian spring cleaning ...well you need not cringe .
It was not as bad as is believed.

Most of the bad press was due to advertisers trying to display/push that the old ways were "too Victorian" .If you used their new cleaners your life would be one of leisure and you would have an always clean house ...

Victorians were much worried about disease , with good reason. People died easily  until the invention of modern medicines ,especially antibiotics. We have no such worries in today's world.

 Problems such as bed bugs were a scourge in most households, today we have treated mattresses to avoid such things.  Although these little buggers are back I am told.(Pardon the pun I could not help myself)

We have central heating which is clean and most furnaces have filters. Unlike heating and cooking with wood or coal as was. Most of us do not store wood in our homes , bringing in spiders and ants with the wood. And there is the ash and the wood debris from a winters load of wood in the basement or wherever you keep your wood.
Most of us do not store our foods from the garden, so pests do not move in in the fall with the food stuffs.
Our modern homes are much cleaner , not to mention our central or push vacuum cleaners, our modern paints and our wonderful washing machines. Just to name a few differences.


Anti Victorian style spring cleaning and Anti-Victorianism reached its peak in the 1950's and early 1960's. At that time there started to be a push for a  more "relaxed" style of house cleaning to be adopted. This new method/trend focused on a clean as you go method rather than a change of season deep cleaning.
There were also many new "products" sold and advertised to make cleaning a breeze...
Houses were getting more modern and young families tended to buy new homes rather than old homes.
And women instead of staying home and cleaning could go to work in order to pay for their new homes and uber cleaning products ...so they could not possibly have the time to clean the "old fashioned way"

So which is better ?

Spring cleaning here is important, we heat with wood and the walls and ceilings show the dirt. We also seem to get a lovely variety of cob webs , that show up wonderfully . As I mentioned with wood comes spiders and ants , and dust and wood chips etc...
So I clean the Victorian way, One room at a time starting up and working down to the basement.
I have heard tell that some think that the Victorians did this in a one full swoop and emptied the house, I must tell you that this is not true , they cleaned thoroughly one room at a time. Top to bottom, including repainting or papering, re sanding floors. Makes much more sense to do this one room at a time ,especially with the threat of rain in the spring. Besides there were still the usual chores to do along with this extra project.
I have yet to read an account of them emptying the whole house ...just would not make sense.

We have wood floors, it is wonderful to give them a really good scrub especially in the guest rooms. For the rest of the year I just dry mop them.
All of the windows are cleaned with ammonia and the sills are feed of last years fly graveyard.

The kitchen is cleaned much more often ,it gets dirty especially the ceilings because of the wood cook stove. So I pay paparticular attention. I wipe down all of the wood at least every other month with ammonia.
The kitchen is also the most travelled room so it is needless to say it is the one that gets the most attention..

Another Victorianism I would like to mention is the strength of the cleaning products, again advertisers were looking to convince women that if their products were purchased ,women's lives would be much better. I have seen the ads with women wearing gas masks, But I would argue that our cleaners are caustic today as they were then. We have just sort of tidied them up and added "spring garden " smells to them..We still use ammonia and ammonia products ...just as they did then. To name one ...

Spring cleaning gives us a new beginning each year in a sense.
In the Victorian era and the eras before it "spring" would have welcomed a new year so to speak, a new food growing year, a new visiting time as now people could travel easier and would not be afraid of getting ill from the weather,.
Summer kitchen wood stoves would be fired up, keeping the heat and therefore the dust out of the main house.
Meals would be eaten out of doors or in screened rooms/porches. Many activities would be moved out of doors .Summer curtains would be hung and winter heavy,keep the cold out curtains would be washed ,mended and stored until the cold returned.
I love spring and spring cleaning, I look forward to the season that is approaching and can hardly wait until we can breakfast on the porch with seasonal flowers on our table ..
until next time ,,,you know where I will be
Margaret