Archive Category: 'Cleaning'

• 10 Quick Tips For A Shiny Bathroom: Apply a thin layer of lemon oil to shower doors. This helps keep soap scum from building up by making the soapy water bead up on the glass and slide on down the drain. Pour 2 tsp of lemon oil on a clean cloth then wipe the doors. Do this every other week for best [...]
• Do You Wash Your Broom?: Brooms are an essential tool for a clean home, we use them on a daily basis to sweep up dirt, dust bunnies and spilled bits that accumulate on our floors. But when the broom bristles are full of grody bits, aren’t we just spreading dirt and germs around when we use them for cleaning? You don’t [...]
• Vacuum Bag Sachet Fresheners: How-To: Slip these fragrant sachets into your vacuum bag and enjoy the pleasant fragrance when you vacuum the floor. They’re easy to make using just a few simple ingredients and best part is: they don’t make a mess! How To Make Vacuum Bag Sachets Ingredients: 1/4 cup dried lavender* 1/4 cup dried rosemary* 1 TBS cloves* 1/2 cup cedar shavings 1 TBS baking [...]
• 21 Crayon Busters: How To Remove Crayon From Walls: Here is an organized master tip file of crayon removal tips that I’ve gathered over time. Keep in mind some paint finishes may be dulled or damaged by a particular method, so test a small area of your wall first. If the walls are covered in wallpaper, you’ll need to work carefully and make sure to [...]
• How To Clean Household Sponges: Did you know your household sponges should be cleaned at least every other day? They are nice for scrubbing and wiping up, but make sure to wash frequently to help prevent spreading grubbies around your home. According to Simmons Center for Hygiene and Health in the Home: ”A sponge that’s been in use for no more than [...]
• How To Remove Nail Polish From Carpet: Here’s a carpet stain removal tip sent in by Charlotte, nail polish spills can make an awful mess on carpet and here’s her tip for removing it: First remove what you can of the nail polish by blotting it up with paper towels. Next pour a little nail polish remover on the stain and blot the nail [...]
• Tips For Cleaning Laminate Floors: We recently had gorgeous laminate flooring installed in our living room and I just had to ask the flooring expert (our installer) what he recommended for cleaning it. Although laminate is much easier to care for than real wood flooring and I’ve had it for years in other parts of the house, I want to [...]
• Bed Bugs: Treatment & Tips For Getting Rid Of Them: Bed bugs (bedbugs) are usually brought into the house from the outside, on clothing, baggage, second-hand furniture or in laundry done in an infested home. Social stigma is attached to the bed bug more than to any other insect. This is unfair since the most conscientious homemaker may bring them in on his or her [...]
• How To Clean A Curling Iron: Have a bit of hairspray and hair product buildup on your curling iron? Here’s an easy way to clean that gunk off: Make sure the curling iron is unplugged and the barrel is cool to the touch. Pour a bit of rubbing alcohol on a damp cloth or a cotton ball and rub the barrel of the [...]
• Lampshade Cleaning: Quick Tips: Do you keep the plastic packaging on your lampshades to make cleanup easier? It’s easy enough to wipe the plastic down with a damp cloth, but the plastic wrap doesn’t fit everyone’s sense of style. Also, be aware that the plastic may be a fire hazard because of the heat the light bulb generates. Here are [...]
• Grout Cleaning Tips & Recipes: Some of the recipes & cleaning solutions below contain ammonia, or bleach, or vinegar (I’ve also included other homemade cleaners that are gentler to use). There are some who claim that these items will degrade grout over time–what that amount of time is I don’t know (5 years? 50 years?) or that they may affect [...]
• How To Get Rid Of Fruit Flies: Fruit flies are tiny, pesky flies that are brown and appear to have no fear of people (often it seems they’re trying to fly up your nose and in your mouth) but they’re mostly just clumsy fliers. The good news is that getting rid of and killing fruit flies is not difficult, you just need [...]
• How To Clean Cat Spray: Recipes & Tips: If you’ve ever had a tomcat stroll by and spray around your basement window or front door, you know what a stink that is! Cat spray is pretty potent stuff and the smell is not something that dissipates easily. The quicker you clean it up, the better chance you have of avoiding a repeat performance (the [...]
• How To Wash A Feather Duster: Did you know that handy little gadget you use for dusting can easily be washed, over and over again? Good quality ostrich feather dusters hold up to washings better than the cheapies, but if your duster is this-close to being tossed because it’s worn down and heavy from all the dirt buildup, give a quick [...]
• Dusting: Tips, Tools & Prevention: Now that the weather is nice, windows and doors are kept wide open so we can enjoy all the lovely fresh air that we’ve been missing over the past winter–the downside to this is that with so many openings into the home, dust and dirt accumulate throughout the house quicker than ever. Dust buildup is one [...]
• 10 Ways Herbs Can Freshen Your Home: Spring cleaning is in full swing this time of year, here are ten ways you can use herbs around the house to perk things up… 10 Ways Herbs Can Freshen Up Your Home Homemade Herbal Carpet Freshener Recipe: I like to use dried lavender, but I included other herbal mixes to try as well. This makes a [...]
• Tipnut’s Guide To Spring Cleaning: Here’s a peek at this year’s battle plan for the big Spring Clean in my home, I’ve also included references to homemade cleaner recipes, tips for specific cleaning jobs and assorted fix-it projects that will help make this year’s job a big success. Spring Cleaning Tips Mission: Clean – Declutter – Organize Every surface is cleaned, everything [...]
• House Cleaning Kit – Tips & Ideas: One of the secrets to efficient house cleaning is to cart around your own customized cleaning kit from room to room, this saves you time since you have everything you need at hand. As common sense as it sounds, this isn’t something that occurred to me until FlyLady caught my attention a few years ago, she [...]
• 20 Cleaning Tips & Work Savers: Timeless Wisdom: These vintage cleaning tips are a collection of snippets found in books and magazines from the 1940’s and early 1950’s offering advice to homemakers. Since they didn’t have the appliances, tools and cleaning products that we have today (that make our tasks so much easier), every good tip made a difference to the homemaker’s daily [...]
• How To Clean Needlework: If you love to display cross stitch, embroidery and crewel work, here are step-by-step instructions for cleaning pieces that are in dire need of freshening up. No matter how carefully we display our needlework, they can get grungy with smoke, grease and handling stains. As always, first test a small area before trying a cleaning [...]
• Grime Busters For Outside: 8 Quick Tips: Mechanical Grease Hand Cleaner: Drizzle some olive or vegetable oil over dirty hands that are covered in grease (from vehicle repairs, mechanical parts, etc.). Work the oil in a bit by rubbing it all over then wash hands in hot soapy water as usual. The grease will wash away much easier. Tree Sap & Tar Remover: [...]
• Cleaning Your House on the Cheap!: Today’s feature is from DIY Maven at Curbly with Curbly Recession Busters: Cleaning Your House on the Cheap!: The wisenheimers among us might say the best way to save money on cleaning supplies is not to clean. That, however, is not an option. You can be broke and clean. (Just ask any depression-era housekeeper.) In an [...]
• How To Clean An Iron: {Tips}: Is your steam iron acting a little sputtery and doing an inconsistent job when ironing? It’s probably just clogged with mineral and lime deposits, all it takes is a simple cleaning job to get it back to like-new shape. Here’s how to clean a clogged iron (plus a few more tips & goodies): How To Clean An Iron Fill [...]
• Nitty-Gritty Guide to Cleaning Household Surfaces: Today’s feature is from RealSimple with Nitty-Gritty Guide to Cleaning Household Surfaces: With just one bucket of supplies, you can scrub the entire house — here’s which products clean what … You’ll find 18 quick, no-nonsense tips for cleaning all kinds of household surfaces: How to Clean Butcher Block How to Clean Ceramic Tile How to Clean Cork Flooring How to [...]
• 10 Household Cleaning Quick Tips: Cleaning Louvers & Venetian Blinds: Use a soft paint brush to get in and wipe away the grime in between louvers (slats) and venetian blinds. If you do this regularly, the paint brush technique should be enough to prevent a grime buildup that will need more scrubbing power. Here are more types of brushes you [...]