Day 5: Let’s make the windows squeaky clean!

The favorite feature of my current home: floor-to-ceiling windows and  wall-to-wall glass windows. This  ~ translates to a flood of natural light.

But, that also means tough deep cleaning once in a while. it’s quite a task to keep the shine on large glass windows. They looked the best the day professionals from MyBlueBottle cleaned the windows. Within weeks, dust and grime formed a layer on the tracks and the shine became muddy. I took it upon myself to periodically clean all the windows to keep the shine on until the next time they are deep cleaned..

What you’ll need to clean the tracks:

• Vaccum
• Old socks
• A sprayer filled with equal parts vinegar + water + two drops of liquid soap
• Old toothbrush
• Microfiber
• Old cloth

How to clean the tracks:

1. Loosen the dirt with a tooth brush first.
2. Vacuum the tracks with a crevice attachment. I use an old Eureka vaccum cleaner. this should remove most of the dust particles.
3. Spray the tracks with water+ vinegar solution.
4. Clean it with the old sock.
5. Wipe it dry with a microfiber cloth
6. Cover the cleaned tracks with old clothes so that the dirt from the windows do not flow back into the tracks.

You can watch this video to see how to clean the tracks.

Next, we move on to the windows.

What you’ll need:

• A bucket as always to hold your supplies
• Sponge
• Squeegee – I use the Spotzero glass wiper
• Two old cotton clothes – one dry and one wet
• Any glass cleaner or a homemade solution of vinegar + water + drops of liquid soap

How to clean the windows:

1. Clean the rim/ exterior surface with a wet cloth to remove stains and dust.
2. Dust the glass surface of the window first with a dry cloth.
3. Spray the cleaning solution and wet the entire surface with a sponge.
4. If there are any stubborn marks like paint or bird poop, use a scraper to remove those marks.
5. Squeegee it in such a way that it doesn’t leave any streak marks. Move the squeegee in a S pattern. Remember to wipe the squeegee with the wet cloth after every move to remove dirt from its head.  See how to squeegee in this video.
6. Clean the entire surface with a dry cloth.
7. If there are any streaks, touch the spots. See the entire process on how to clean the window like a pro in this video.

One of the common thing you see are streaks on the window that follows the squeegee’s movement. Or black marks on the window and your palm when you use a newspaper. Not a pretty sight. Using the methods listed in this post, neither do we use newspapers nor will you see streaks.

Happy cleaning! I imagine this will take more than 30 minutes if you have as many windows as there are in my house. So split it up over days. Take a break the next two days, or revisit the closets, or any unfinished tasks. I’ll return after two days with a tough task made easy: cleaning bathrooms.