Spring cleaning is not really about dust. Dust simply tells you where the work is. For us, it is a chance to pull a familiar space apart just enough to see it again.
As shopkeepers, we spend a great deal of time arranging things. A table moves slightly to the left. A bowl moves to another shelf. We stand back, consider it, and quite possibly move it again. So the chance to begin with an entirely empty shop was, frankly, a dream.
This week, every piece of stock left The Hub General Store on a truck. For a short while, the shop was simply floorboards, walls and a great many possibilities.
With nothing in the way, old corners reappeared. We noticed arrangements that still worked beautifully and others that had quietly become habit. The cleaning mattered, of course, but being able to see the shop properly was the real pleasure.
That is our philosophy of spring cleaning.
We are not particularly interested in empty rooms. We are a general store, after all. We like homes with things in them. Useful things, familiar things and pieces gathered over years of living.
To us, a spring clean is about looking after those things and reconsidering where they live. Something may need a wash, a repair or a more sensible cupboard. Something else may have finished its work and be ready to move on. Often, the smallest change is enough to make a room feel better.
At home, that feeling might begin with one shelf or drawer. At The Hub General Store, it required a truck and several willing hands.
The tools we favour
We feel much the same about cleaning tools. A cupboard full of sprays and half-used bottles is no match for a few dependable things that do their jobs properly.
- Redecker Goat Hair Duster gathers dust gently from glass, marble and polished timber.
- Redecker Ostrich Feather Duster moves around lamps, vases and uneven objects without knocking everything about.
- Redecker Venetian Blind Cleaning Brush cleans several slats at once. A very particular tool for a particularly tedious job.
- Redecker Bow-Shaped Scrub Brush takes care of tiled areas, hard floors and stubborn surfaces.
- Redecker Sinkbasin Trio reaches the taps, drains and overflows that ordinary brushes miss.
- Redecker Cotton and Towel Yarn Dish Cloth is washable, absorbent and useful in almost every room.
- Dr Bronner’s Sal Suds is a concentrated, plant-based cleaner for dishes, floors, laundry and hard surfaces.
The stock is now back inside and the shelves are full again, though not quite as they were. The shop has not become unrecognisable. That was never the point. It simply feels clearer, easier and newly noticed.
That, we think, is a spring clean well done.
Our housekeeping supplies and natural cleaning brushes are available online, with shipping across Australia and worldwide. If one neglected cupboard, dusty light fitting or set of blinds came to mind while reading this, you have already found your first job.