New Year’s Resolutions and a cleaning revelation…

Cleaning first…

I was approached by CSN stores to promote their online store and review a product. Because the link they wanted me to provide tied in nicely with what I wanted to say I agreed. (Remember the B.A.T. post? And FYI I have that dresser set up and ready to be prepped for paint…did that yesterday.) Well I picked out a couple things (I had two gift-certificates).

         

OK – here is what I have to say…nothing takes the place of getting down on your hands and knees and scrubbing the floor. I think we can all agree on this. BUT the steam mop is awesome! I can clean all my hard floors in record time and they are very clean. They say the steam also sanitizes and with pets and kids I like this. It doesn’t get into all the corners or edges very well but I’ve solved that problem by using my homemade cleaning wipes and wiping those areas by hand…or foot.

Homemade Cleaning Wipes

• Cut a roll of paper towels in half
• Put one half in a container that has a lid (I use a plastic coffee can).
• Pour in about a half a cup (or a few glugs) of your favorite all-purpose cleaner (I used Mr.Clean this time).
• Add a cup and a half or so of water and put the lid on the container and let it sit on the counter.
• Pull out the cardboard tube, put the lid back on and turn the container upside-down.
• In a half hour or so open the container and pull out a paper towel from the middle and wipe down whatever needs to be wiped! Easy peasy! (And makes it easier for the kids to help!)
• If the wipes are too wet let it sit with the lid off for a little while, if too dry add more water. You can adjust the amount of cleaner to suite you.

The Scotch Brite floor sweeper has a purpose too. Let’s pretend you just vacuumed the carpet and your somebody ripped out a dozen pages from a notebook, and you don’t want to drag the vacuum back out.  All those little pieces of paper are easily picked up with a couple pushes with this sweeper. Or you spilled something in the kitchen like potting soil…again, a couple passes with this and it’s all gone! I let it sit by my garbage can in the kitchen and it is always “right there”. It’s also cute enough that it doesn’t bother me. I was disappointed that it doesn’t pick up dog hair. I have a rug under my kitchen table that the dogs like to lounge on and it mostly just balls the hair up. To be fair I had read about this in the reviews, so it wasn’t a surprise.

On of my favorite cleaning tools is my Orek Electric Broom with detachable “dust buster”. I got it at a garage sale this summer for about $2.00. It was missing a filter and a charger. It was a gamble and I got lucky…Julie had a charger that would work and I taped up a couple layers of a used dryer sheet to make a filter. I looooove the dust buster handheld thingy. I don’t think I will ever live without one of these handy cleaning tools again. I use it to vacuum the steps and corners in the kitchen. I’ve even used it to vacuum my counter tops when I spilled oatmeal.

OK, the revelation part is that having clean floors makes the whole house seem cleaner! Maybe the rest of you already knew this but I didn’t. The floors were my least favorite job and I would procrastinate until I couldn’t anymore. Now I can keep up with them in no time and the whole house seems cleaner…and it’s easy!

New Year’s Resolution

I’ve been pretty successful with my resolutions in the past. Last year I vowed to “touch everything in this house and put it where it belongs”. I did that…it just didn’t stay there! I’ve realized that this will be ongoing…especially while I still have children living with me. This year I am going to fix up my bedroom. Sounds easy but it is quite the project. I need to:

• Caulk where the ceiling meets the walls.
• Sand down lumps in the ceiling where the previous owners did a bad taping job.
• Add baseboard.
• Add trim around my closet door.
• Come up with a color scheme.
• I have unfinished wood floors in there that need something…
• Paint the walls.
• Paint the ceiling.
• I would LOVE a new ceiling fan.
• Make a headboard.
• Make a dust ruffle

Well, you get the idea. And I want to do it all for next to nothing… cause I’m cheap thrifty! I’ve decided to tackle this room because we’ve lived here for over a decade and I’ve done nothing to it…and it is a room you can see when the door is left open. It’s embarrassing. And I’ve been spending more time in there over the past year or so cause it is a relatively quiet and comfortable place to read or watch TV when chaos (teenagers) is happening in the living room. Wish me luck.

I also want to find a shirt pattern that fits me and make shirts…this resolution scares me more than the bedroom…

Happy Crafting!!! (and cleaning)