1. SPRING CLEAN – WHAT IS IT AND WHY NOW?

What is a spring clean? A spring clean is a big clean job, and it's a chance to focus on those trouble areas within the bathroom and kitchen that you wouldn't do every day – there's a reason why we do it once every 6 months!

But don't panic. It's my feeling that a lot of people don't know how to manage cleaning, but actually once you follow a method, learn some hacks and make it fun – it can really take a lot of the pain away.

"As we come into spring the light changes due to the angle of the sun changing. This causes the light to reflect differently on the things in your home - meaning you see things that you didn't see during the winter months - such as DUST and GRIME! It's the only time of the year light reflects this way - hence the term spring clean!"

2. DUSTING

Dusting is the essential part of any cleaning process, be it your seasonal deep clean, spring cleaning or winter cleaning. Dusting seems to be one of the most hateful tasks. But sadly there is no escape to it. Dust will continue to coat every possible horizontal surface.

TIP: DAMP DUST. Usually, the moment you clean and wipe off the dust on any surface, it starts accumulating on that surface again; although it may not be evident initially. Richard's top tip is to wet your cloth to dust so the dust gets caught on the cloth. That way it doesn't reaccumulate.

TIP: ALWAYS USE MICROFIBER CLOTH. Always use microfiber cloth. They suck up everything and they're really durable.

ALTERNATIVES: You can use a tea towel in replacement of a microfibre cloth, as these tend to have a little bit of towelling on it. You don't want something too thick as it will be too heavy.

DEMO: USE TONGS TO DUST BLINDS: Dusting each slat of your window blinds by hand takes forever! You can make the process much quicker by using a pair of tongs from your kitchen. Wrap a clean microfiber cloth around the edges of your tongs, and secure them using rubber bands. Then use your dusting tongs to dust your blinds twice as fast!

3. STEAM CLEANING MICROWAVE

Lemons are my absolute must-have for cleaning. They are brilliant because the citrus is acidic – acid by nature cuts down bacteria, it's corrosive.

Cleaning your microwave seems like a mammoth task, but actually with this simple hack it's completely painless!

HACK: To clean your microwave within an inch of itself, put chopped up lemons in a bowl of hot water, squeezing some of the juice out. Put it on for 5 mins. Remove the bowl and the microwave will have been steam cleaned. Wipe away with a microfibre cloth, put it on for one more round and there you go. Your microwave will also be deodorised too.

4. CHOPPING BOARD

For wood chopping boards, food and bacteria gets absorbed into the wood and makes it really difficult to properly clean. Day to day it's fine to just wash up, but you'll need to do a deep clean every once in a while of the chopping board to make sure you're keeping hygienic.

TIP: Put a bit of salt on the chopping board and cut a lemon in half – then 'exfoliate' the chopping board. It deodorises it and gets rid of bacteria. It saves you using something stronger to kill the bacteria and worrying you'll have a horrible taste when you chop after!

5. GETTING RID OF LIMESCALE WITH LEMONS

Getting rid of your limescale on your bathroom taps isn't a day to day job – it's something you'll be saving for that big spring clean you've been putting off.

Depending on your area and how soft/hard the water is, limescale can be an absolute nightmare. I've found that lemon can clean limescale off EVERYTHING.

HACKS: For your taps – the last thing you want is limescale infiltrating your water. The end of the tap where the water comes out always has limescale around it. My hack is to cut the lemon in half and stick it on the end of the tap. Leave it for half an hour, then wipe it clean – it's that simple. It also makes your tap really shiny because of the citris element.