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Outdoor Furniture Guide

Speed-Clean Your Porch Checklist

Potted Kalanchoe flower

With the help of a few key tools—a good sponge, a duster, some microfiber cloths, a push broom, and a scrub brush—you can totally transform your porch in 10 minutes or less.

  • Minutes 1 and 2: Move everything from the porch into the yard: chairs, tables, potted plants, and anything else that isn’t nailed down. Drape rugs and mats over a fence or a rail to air them out.
  • Minute 3: With a bucket of warm, soapy water and a large sponge, wipe down furniture, plant pots, and decorative objects.

    Related: Your Guide to Cleaning Outdoor Furniture

  • Minute 4: Using an extendable duster, sweep cobwebs from high corners, overhangs, and shutters.
  • Minutes 5 and 6: Rewet the sponge and give wood and metal surfaces (front door, railings, shutters, sills, ironwork, sconces) a once-over. Use a damp microfiber cloth to swipe low windows; follow with a dry cloth.
  • Minute 7: Grab the push broom to sweep leaves, dirt, and twigs from the floor. Do the steps last.
  • Minute 8: Dip a long-handled scrub brush in the bucket and clean the floor.
  • Minutes 9 and 10: When the floor is dry, replace the furniture, rugs, and plants, leaving out anything that shouldn’t have been on the porch in the first place. Now pour yourself a glass of something tall and cold and kick back to admire your work.

Did we forget anything on this checklist? What would you add?

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