That Little I Don't Know What the Hell to Do with Room - The Hallway

Ok, this is going to be a short post because, well, quite frankly…there is not too much to say about hallways. Whether they are small, large, short, or long, in the average home, they generally don’t require a great deal of time.

If you have a hallway in your house or apartment, start by doing the same as in any other room – start top to bottom, dusting and working both walls a section at a time as you work your way down. You don’t want to be retracing your steps here. Most likely you will only need two tools here – your duster for those pictures or mirrors and your vacuum for the floors.

Now what I am about to say next is a word of advice: If you are vacuuming with an upright vacuum or a canister vacuum with a wand that has a beater brush power head - especially if you are vacuuming between two different flooring materials (ex. carpet to wood) - don’t go over the edge of the carpet with your power head. Why, you ask? In time, the brush will pull up the edges of the carpet and most importantly it will scratch your wood floors. This is something we don’t EVEN want to think about!

 Until the next time, today, and everyday put comfort in your life....Ciao!

The Dining Room

Your dining room – a place where your family may assemble for dinner and for any and all special occasions. Regardless of how often it may get used, you want it clean and looking its best at all times. So how should we properly and efficiently clean it?

1. First, you will need the same tools that we used in the previous post to clean the living room.

2. Upon entering the room if there is a doorway, make sure to dust the molding above the entrance. Next, as always, approach the room from top to bottom and left to right - catching those ceiling corner cobwebs, wall fixtures, drapery tops, window shelves, etc.

Next, move to the center of the room, get your duster in hand and dust off that chandelier. Your duster should be sufficient, but if your chandelier is really dirty, I will cover that as a segment by itself later on.

3. Proceed to clean the furniture in the dining room. The process of cleaning the furniture follows the same as you would in the living room, except for the dining table and chairs. Different dining table tops require different cleaning methods. If you have an all glass top - use your glass cleaner, if you have an all wood table – use your furniture polish and polish cloth (if this table doesn’t get a lot of use you won’t need to use the furniture polish each time, you can just wipe it down with just the polish cloth with nothing added to it.)

You will save a lot of time if you clean or polish half of the table at a time, and then dust the chairs closest to you. Next, wipe the arms, rungs (area underneath the chair that joins the legs together),  legs of the chairs, and legs and or pedestal of the table.  Oh, and don’t forget to brush off the seats. Now, move over to the other side and repeat. Look, you just saved yourself a lot of time by not retracing your steps.

4. Finally, vacuum your floors and carpets and you’re done.

Until the next time, today, and everyday put comfort in your life....Ciao!

The Living Room

Tools needed:

                 1. Vacuum

                 2. Your carry-all bag
                 3. Ceiling fan brush w/extension pole

                 4. 8 cleaning cloths (It’s best to be prepared,
                     you’ll need them for each room)

                

Ok, I said we were going to go into each room, so let’s start with the living room! I’m not going to pretend to know what is in every room of your house, but I’ll try to cover every item that one would possibly find in each particular room. If it isn’t the same as yours, you can at least (hopefully) relate.

Remember what I said about addressing a room – you start from top to bottom, left to right. So what steps do we need to take to get this room clean?

1) Look up and check those ceiling corners for cobwebs. Use your ceiling fan brush on the extension pole to dust them away.  Take a quick turn around the room because you don’t want to be putting it down and picking it up more than once.  (Hey! If there’s any spiders, catch them and let them loose outside, “OM”.)

2) As you move around the room, dust everything just below the ceiling, but out of your normal reach (ex. top of the windows, door jams, blinds, and top of drapes.) Additionally, if you have any artificial plants, use your duster - top to bottom - and hold the leaves with one hand, as you dust with the other. Don’t forget to use a cleaning cloth to get the floor behind the plant where the vacuum can’t reach. Now, move to the center and get that ceiling fan.

3) Let’s move down the wall and get those mirrors and pictures. Use a dry cloth to wipe around those picture frames (wiping with one hand and holding the frame with the other because we don’t want any accidents, like falling picture frames or mirrors.)

Now, let’s clean those mirrors! Using your glass cleaner, spray your cleaning cloth, clean, and wipe until fully dry (slightly dry will leave streaks.) You can check if your work is done by looking at it from an angle (not straight on) because that is the only way you’ll see if you got all of the smudges, finger prints, etc.

4) Next, wipe down the door and door jams, along with the light switches and outlets with your all-purpose cleaner (or you can save that part for that rainy day we talked about earlier.) While you’re here, check the wall. Are there any smudges or finger prints? Because now is the time to wipe them away. While using the all-purpose cleaner, hold your cleaning cloth right beneath the mark, spray the cleaner onto the wall (the cloth is there to keep the liquid from running down the wall, besides you only want to clean the smudge not the whole wall), and wipe clean.

5) Time to clean the end tables and coffee tables! We will treat them both in the same manner, but we will start with the end tables first. First, clean above the table, the lamp shade, the light bulb, and the lamp itself with your duster. Unless you have young children that go around touching everything as they are playing, or you use your end tables and coffee tables for placing drinks, food, reading materials, etc, then the tables are rarely touched and you don’t have to use furniture polish or oil every time.  Instead, use your furniture polish cloth (nothing more added to it) and wipe down the table top and legs.

Now, when cleaning furniture such as end tables, coffee tables, etc., let’s remember to be careful because it takes less time to remove or pick up the items and clean under them, then it is to move things around and clean around them. With this word of advice, believe me – I learned the hard way, been there, done that, and it cost me! What’s the probability of something bad happening? It will, so just be careful!

If your furniture is on the carpet, use your dry cleaning toothbrush around the bottom of the legs. If it is on tile or wood floors use your duster. Reason – your vacuum just can’t get to that well enough and it will leave a dust ring.

Moving on to your couches and chairs. Now, depending on the fabric (cloth or leather) makes the decision on how you are going to clean it. Leather furniture just needs a wipe down – all around with a damp cloth, but may need to be vacuumed under the cushions. Fabric furniture requires a little more work.  Use the upholstery brush attachment on your vacuum and vacuum the whole area under the cushions. If you have pets and fur is a problem, a slightly damp cloth, wiped in one direction across the fabric will pick that hair right up with no problems.

If there is other furniture such as shelving units or a book case, use your duster to dust the tops and fronts of any books, the exposed edge of the shelves, and all other objects. If you have a fireplace, do not dust the fireplace because of the soot; instead use your all-purpose cleaner.

6) Now vacuum the floor using your hard surface brush attachment and wand, or if it’s carpet go ahead and use your upright vacuum as normal set on the carpet setting.

That’s it – the living room is clean!  

So, until next time, today, and everyday put comfort in your life....Ciao!

Blinds and Baseboards

Before we go into each room, we should address organization in your everyday life. I am not going to tell you how to wash your dishes or how to make your bed. These are everyday occurrences and to each his own, but a clean house starts with picking up the clutter. Once you have tackled this problem, your weekly cleaning will take no time at all and this is what you want. You will be totally surprised how much your attitude towards yourself and your surroundings will positively change once the clutter is out of your life.

Ok, now do me a favor and file this next idea aside. You can use it for a rainy, cold, or snowy day, one of those days where you just don’t want to go out of the house. Well have your morning coffee because this is the day you want to tackle (drum roll please) mini blinds, louver blinds, and base boards!!

So what tools will you need to complete this project:

1) Vacuum
2) 1 gal. Bucket of water
3) 1 cup white vinegar
4) 1/4 cup Dawn (blue)
5) Mix. The above together
6) 2 cleaning clothes
 
Step 1 – Get that vacuum ready because you will need to go around the room and clean off the base boards and those blinds.

Step 2 – Incorporate the ingredients into the bucket of water. Make sure the water is not sudsy because you want to clean them fast, not spend all day rinsing them off.

Step 3 – Ring out one of the clothes and proceed to wipe down each blade, one at a time. Make sure to have the second cloth on hand to wipe dry, just in case you got carried away and they are too wet.  Alright, blinds are clean and you are ready to tackle those base boards!

Step 4 – Wipe down all base boards, from the top rim, all through the house. Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s wipe down those electrical outlets and switch plates. And we are done!!!

Wait, wait, I’m sorry, don’t put the vacuum away just yet! While we are at it, if you have central AC, let’s clean the air return and vents. If you have a wall or window AC or a furnace you will have to clean or replace the filters every three to four months. Ok, now you’re done, at least with this until next month, or until next time it rains. Listen, dust is nothing more than the dirt you drag in from outside on your feet, your pet’s dander, and your dead skin cells. Keeping your filters clean, you will be cutting back on your dust exposure.
 
Until next time, today, and everyday put comfort in your life…Ciao!

Chemistry 101

In this entry, we will be covering what we will be cleaning with and why. As a side note, the spray nozzle on your spray bottles should be different colors. This will help you recognize just what cleaning fluid you’re reaching for by site, eliminating any chance of an accident, and using the wrong product for the job. Also, don’t buy or use (if you can) the type of spray nozzles that have the spring in the trigger mechanism because they will corrode. Instead, use the all plastic trigger mechanism.

Spray Bottle #1 – All Purpose Cleaner: The retail products are the likes of Fantastik, 409, Mr. Clean Multi-Surface Cleaner, Simple Green, and Fabuloso. I’ve used them all and they all have their pluses and minuses, but with these cleaners you have to take into account the damage they can do to you, your children, and your pets. For me, they literally ate the skin off my hands. I use something that’s much easier, cheaper, safer, and I haven’t had any problems with my hands since.  The solution: ¼ teaspoon of blue Dawn dish washing liquid added to 16 oz of water (distilled water works the best.) In my opinion, this has turned out to be the best of all purpose cleaners because you can use it everywhere – countertops of all materials (including granite), wood, cabinets, and those real tough toothpaste splashed mirrors. Just spray and wipe!

Spray Bottle #2 – Glass Cleaner:  There are products like Windex and others that supposedly clean your glass and mirrors. The problem is they include perfumes to mask the scent and this in turn leaves that smear of fog on your mirror (and you wonder why you can’t get them clean, duh!) So let’s keep it simple – Isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol and one or two drops of Dawn.  Use this to clean anything including glass, windows, mirrors, and chrome fixtures, as well as granite counter tops, where it leaves a very nice shine, with no dullness. On a side note, that’s why we use Dawn instead of something like vinegar because any acid is a granite counter tops worst enemy. On the other hand, if you don’t have granite you can use white vinegar (1/4 tsp) with alcohol. Your glass will shine and sparkle like diamonds.

Spray Bottle #3 – Bleach Cleaner: We can go in numerous directions using bleach and water or the retail product cleaner and bleach. But you really must be very careful as to what you mix with bleach because the chemical reaction can turn out to be a very bad mistake. I have found that a mixture of 1/3 cup of Tide detergent and 2/3 cup of bleach (use Clorox scented) mixed with 1 gallon of water (these mix very well together) works very effectively to kill mold in the bathroom and as a general cleaner for the tub, shower, and toilet bowl.  For those of you who want to clean “green” you can use hydrogen peroxide, but it just may take a little longer – spray it on, let it sit for 30 minutes, come back to the area, scrub, and rinse.

Spray Bottle #4 – Acid Cleaner: The retail products we know are: The Works, CLR, and Scrub Free. All of these have the same purpose, to clean through soap scum and hard water deposit. They are very toxic and will eat a hole through your skin if you allow it to stay on your hands without washing it off or if you don’t wear gloves. All of these products have sulfamic acid which can cause skin and eye irritation, so if you have existing respiratory problems, such as asthma, emphysema, etc – DO NOT USE!  For my spray bottle, I use straight white vinegar and ¼ teaspoon of Dawn (blue) and you will have a very effective disinfectant and soap scum cleaner, which can be used for sinks, tubs, showers, and toilets.  I’m a firm believer in the power of white vinegar.

Spray bottle #5 – Basic Furniture Polish and Cleaner: The retail products are endless from your top end oil products for wood to your everyday Liquid Gold and Pledge.  There are some products I know that work very well such as Parker and Bailey’s Furniture Cream which is good for finished woods and the Swiffer Dust and Shine to use for a duster. The Swiffer is a good product that contains almond oil, but a word of caution – it is an aerosol, so those of you that suffer from allergies and COPD should not use it. What do I use? ¼ cup of white vinegar and ¾ cup of canola oil. You can also use ¼ cup of lemon juice along with ½ cup to ¾ cup of canola oil. These make excellent wood furniture cleaners. Spray the solution onto a soft cloth and wipe lightly.

Now that we have gone through our spray bottles, you will also need a good powder cleanser.  Baking soda is great! It is safe, non-toxic, doesn’t scratch, and it works well with a little elbow grease. I also use Bar Keepers Friend and find that it works far better than the rest of the retail products. As a mild abrasive with no pressure and little scrubbing, this product cleans stainless steel sinks, fiberglass, porcelain, tile, brass, copper, and glass cook tops. Just follow the directions on the container and you are good to go!

Ok, we have gotten through the basics, so let’s start having some fun. The time we spend will have a big pay-off – hours that will add up to days of you NOT cleaning the house.

Until next time, today, and everyday, put comfort in your life…Ciao!