There was an old commercial that I remember seeing when I was little; I'm pretty sure it was for Rice Krispies. It had a young girl showing her younger sister/brother how their mother made Rice Krispy Treats, and when the task was done, she wiped her brow in mock frustration and said, in the sweetest little high-pitched voice, "They're finally done!"
That's about how I felt today: a scant (?) two months after starting this great project, I've finally finished...and it's a really fantastic feeling. I think I've grown a great deal as a homemaker; I've learned a lot about how to clean, how often to clean, and when cleaning can wait. Yes, I ended up with a cleaner house, but I also feel like I ended up stronger, wiser, and more patient. I think that's a pretty good set of results, considering I was armed with cleaning supplies and a broom for the past eight weeks and I STILL managed to keep my family fed, clothed, and entertained.
I think my next step is to come up with some sort of schedule for consistent cleaning, so that I don't end up with this kind of overwhelming and drawn-out task before me again (or at least, not in the near future), so I guess that means one more post. Otherwise, friends, thanks for your attention and support for the past few weeks; it's been really fun!
Showing posts with label blinds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blinds. Show all posts
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Baby Boy's Room
I put off cleaning Baby Boy's room until almost the very end of my great endeavor. I really did have a logical reason: it's easiest for me to clean while kids are sleeping, and he sleeps the most often, but I can't clean while he's asleep in his room. Basically, today I took advantage of a rare opportunity: he was awake, but content to play alone in his infant bouncer; the girls were both asleep. Also, it was pretty incredible to see that, once I finally got started, this may have been the lightest cleaning job I've had yet!
Action Plan:
1. Clean light fixture and fan
2. Clean windows and blinds
3. Clean door frames
4. Dust furniture
5. Clean baseboards
6. Vacuum floor
As I started at the top, I realized that Baby Boy's room was probably the cleanest in the house. Why? We painted it right before we moved him in there, which was a short six months ago (only I would call six months "short" in regards to cleaning). Before we painted, we cleaned the entire room, so it was in pretty good shape. I started, as I always do, by washing the light fixture globes and wiping down the fan blades (which I cleaned with ACV).
I moved from there to Windexing the only window in the room and cleaning out the window tracks. Again, it was reasonably clean, which surprised me; I'm not an expert here, but it seems to me that the east/west facing windows have been significantly less dirty than the north/south facing ones. Also, the windows that face the neighbors' house are cleaner, and this particular window fit both criteria. There were no dog nose-prints, no dead spiders or frogs in the tracks, and even minimal outside dirt. Another happy surprise was that the blinds didn't need cleaning at all; Mini-me used to be in that room, and had pulled down her blinds a few months before. We bought new ones (more specifically, she did), and they have been closed and hidden behind light-blocking curtains ever since then.
The dirtiest place in the room ended up being the outside lower surface of the bedroom door. Years' worth of grimy fingerprints had definitely taken their toll, and it took a cloth with ACV, followed by a Lysol wipe, followed by a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, to clean the door to my satisfaction. After that chore, the dust that I wiped off the surface of the frame seemed like nothing.
Again, the furniture was relatively dust-free, and I am seeing a pattern in Baby Boy's room and the girls' room: they have less surface area and less clutter ON the surface area, so there's less dust. It was really quick to clean all his furniture -- like, less than five minutes. Hmm...maybe I should reduce display items in other areas of the house as well, if it's this easy to clean. On second thought, that would mean doing yet another purge of my books, and I don't think I've got the stomach for it...
I finished up by quickly wiping down the baseboards, which, again, were much cleaner than other baseboards in the house have been. I moved all the furniture to do a thorough vacuuming, used the hose attachment to get a few stubborn bugs in a corner, and was done with the entire project in less than an hour (about the time, incidentally, that Baby Boy decided he was tired of being alone and was ready for dinner).
Action Plan:
1. Clean light fixture and fan
2. Clean windows and blinds
3. Clean door frames
4. Dust furniture
5. Clean baseboards
6. Vacuum floor
As I started at the top, I realized that Baby Boy's room was probably the cleanest in the house. Why? We painted it right before we moved him in there, which was a short six months ago (only I would call six months "short" in regards to cleaning). Before we painted, we cleaned the entire room, so it was in pretty good shape. I started, as I always do, by washing the light fixture globes and wiping down the fan blades (which I cleaned with ACV).
I moved from there to Windexing the only window in the room and cleaning out the window tracks. Again, it was reasonably clean, which surprised me; I'm not an expert here, but it seems to me that the east/west facing windows have been significantly less dirty than the north/south facing ones. Also, the windows that face the neighbors' house are cleaner, and this particular window fit both criteria. There were no dog nose-prints, no dead spiders or frogs in the tracks, and even minimal outside dirt. Another happy surprise was that the blinds didn't need cleaning at all; Mini-me used to be in that room, and had pulled down her blinds a few months before. We bought new ones (more specifically, she did), and they have been closed and hidden behind light-blocking curtains ever since then.
The dirtiest place in the room ended up being the outside lower surface of the bedroom door. Years' worth of grimy fingerprints had definitely taken their toll, and it took a cloth with ACV, followed by a Lysol wipe, followed by a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, to clean the door to my satisfaction. After that chore, the dust that I wiped off the surface of the frame seemed like nothing.
Again, the furniture was relatively dust-free, and I am seeing a pattern in Baby Boy's room and the girls' room: they have less surface area and less clutter ON the surface area, so there's less dust. It was really quick to clean all his furniture -- like, less than five minutes. Hmm...maybe I should reduce display items in other areas of the house as well, if it's this easy to clean. On second thought, that would mean doing yet another purge of my books, and I don't think I've got the stomach for it...
I finished up by quickly wiping down the baseboards, which, again, were much cleaner than other baseboards in the house have been. I moved all the furniture to do a thorough vacuuming, used the hose attachment to get a few stubborn bugs in a corner, and was done with the entire project in less than an hour (about the time, incidentally, that Baby Boy decided he was tired of being alone and was ready for dinner).
Friday, April 20, 2012
Less clutter=less dust
Today I tackled the second half of our large, open "living room", the part which officially is the office/play room/dining room area. I had a few things going for me: first, since this part of the house is used consistently, it's also consistently cleaned. Second, the girls are largely responsible for keeping their portion clean, so I had very little clutter to deal with. Going into it, I assumed that this part of the house would be much cleaner than the rest has been so far. At the very least, I assumed I wouldn't have any significantly dirty parts to deal with.
Action Plan:
1. Clean light fixture
2. Remove items from each shelf of eight-foot bookcase and dust
3. Clean window, valance, and blinds
4. Dust computer desk and office shelves
5. Dust china cabinet and buffet server
6. Wipe down floor boards and vacuum
Right away, I ran into a pretty major road block. In every room I've approached so far, I've moved from the highest point down. In this case, the highest point was a light fixture in our vaulted ceiling that I estimate to be about 12 feet off the ground. We have a step ladder, but it's only eight feet tall, and I was (understandably) afraid to climb that high without another adult to spot me or call 911 if I fell and fractured something. So I skipped the light fixture outright and moved on to the book case.
Our book shelf is one of my favorite pieces of furniture, largely because My Love built it himself. It's eight feet tall and eight feet wide, and it's been crammed with books, Bibles, office supplies, and toys in alternating proportions for the duration of our residence in the house. When I considered removing everything from it to dust, it was a daunting task, but I began it with my trusty can of Pledge and a cleaning rag. The lower shelves, as it turned out, were the cleanest. I suppose I'm more aware of dust and debris in the areas which the children can reach, though I did have to scrub away a few dingy fingerprints along the floor. My surprise came as I dusted the top of the bookcase, which has not been cleaned or seen since I first arranged a row of knick-knacks up there the day the book case was finished. Though nowhere as disgusting as the grime atop the kitchen cabinets, I was shocked at the amount of dust that could accumulate on a surface over time. It took -- wait for it -- FOUR cleaning rags to remove all the dust; each of them turned grey with use before I pulled another from the closet. Essentially, I notice that surfaces that no one sees on a daily basis are consistently the dirtiest. Also, I revisited a lesson from my kitchen cleaning experience: the fewer things there are to collect dust, the easier they are to clean. However, the book case doesn't boast dusty wine bottles that I can nonchalantly toss into the garbage. Instead, every whatchamacallit on the shelves has some sort of sentimental value: the alpaca will teddy bear from Ecuador; the samurai swords my father bought on a trip to Japan; the Winnie the Pooh figurine hand-painted by an old friend. I simply resigned myself to wipe down every surface more often and accept that it will repeatedly get dirty (kind of like my kitchen floor).
Cleaning the single window seemed like a breeze; I've done five now, and this one was small. However, I still haven't figured out how to clean the blinds or remove the screens from outside. I think I'm going to need to devote a Saturday afternoon to scrubbing windows and screens from the outside. (Right now, the windows don't look clean because of the outdoor smudges.)
I have heard that you're supposed to use a particular kind of cleaning product and cleaning wipe for electronics, but I don't have one around the house, and I assumed that a tiny amount of water on a slightly-damp soft cloth couldn't hurt anything. I wiped off our computer tower, monitor, and keyboard. The dust between individual keys was giving me fits; I think I've seen some kind of telemarketing commercial for a product that blows dust off a keyboard, and it must be the only thing that works, because a cloth just didn't cut it. I hated to do it, but I left the computer and computer desk only about 99% clean and added "computer keyboard" to my mental list of failed projects that I'll need to re-evaluate at a later date.
All the furniture in our dining room is wood, though it doesn't match; this is also the least-decorated room in the house. There's one photo of the girls in a large frame, and we also have an antique plate from my grandfather on a stand atop the china cabinet. That's literally it. Any guesses on how long it took to clean this quadrant of the room? Only about 15 minutes, but I do need to go back and clean the light fixture. It's a hanging one, so I can reach it, but it had been on all morning and was too hot to touch. I turned it off after dusting the rest of the room, assuming I'd let it cool and then come back to it, but it completely slipped my mind until I sat down to write this post.
I approached the base boards with Lysol wipes (I had to buy a new can over the weekend!), which seems to be the most effective way. Unlike in the kitchen, I didn't go back over them with a dryer sheet. I'm going to assume that there is less dust and dog hair blowing around the carpeted area than on the tile. And...a quick run with the vacuum cleaner, and I was done!
This portion of the house seemed to go by really quickly. Honestly, it was simple, to, but I didn't "feel" like it was clean when I was done. I'm not sure whether it was because I skipped a few areas, such as the light fixtures, or because it wasn't as dirty in the first place (which means there wasn't a huge change to notice). Regardless, I can now say that the common areas in the house are acceptably clean, and that makes me feel like I've accomplished a great deal.
Action Plan:
1. Clean light fixture
2. Remove items from each shelf of eight-foot bookcase and dust
3. Clean window, valance, and blinds
4. Dust computer desk and office shelves
5. Dust china cabinet and buffet server
6. Wipe down floor boards and vacuum
Right away, I ran into a pretty major road block. In every room I've approached so far, I've moved from the highest point down. In this case, the highest point was a light fixture in our vaulted ceiling that I estimate to be about 12 feet off the ground. We have a step ladder, but it's only eight feet tall, and I was (understandably) afraid to climb that high without another adult to spot me or call 911 if I fell and fractured something. So I skipped the light fixture outright and moved on to the book case.
Our book shelf is one of my favorite pieces of furniture, largely because My Love built it himself. It's eight feet tall and eight feet wide, and it's been crammed with books, Bibles, office supplies, and toys in alternating proportions for the duration of our residence in the house. When I considered removing everything from it to dust, it was a daunting task, but I began it with my trusty can of Pledge and a cleaning rag. The lower shelves, as it turned out, were the cleanest. I suppose I'm more aware of dust and debris in the areas which the children can reach, though I did have to scrub away a few dingy fingerprints along the floor. My surprise came as I dusted the top of the bookcase, which has not been cleaned or seen since I first arranged a row of knick-knacks up there the day the book case was finished. Though nowhere as disgusting as the grime atop the kitchen cabinets, I was shocked at the amount of dust that could accumulate on a surface over time. It took -- wait for it -- FOUR cleaning rags to remove all the dust; each of them turned grey with use before I pulled another from the closet. Essentially, I notice that surfaces that no one sees on a daily basis are consistently the dirtiest. Also, I revisited a lesson from my kitchen cleaning experience: the fewer things there are to collect dust, the easier they are to clean. However, the book case doesn't boast dusty wine bottles that I can nonchalantly toss into the garbage. Instead, every whatchamacallit on the shelves has some sort of sentimental value: the alpaca will teddy bear from Ecuador; the samurai swords my father bought on a trip to Japan; the Winnie the Pooh figurine hand-painted by an old friend. I simply resigned myself to wipe down every surface more often and accept that it will repeatedly get dirty (kind of like my kitchen floor).
Cleaning the single window seemed like a breeze; I've done five now, and this one was small. However, I still haven't figured out how to clean the blinds or remove the screens from outside. I think I'm going to need to devote a Saturday afternoon to scrubbing windows and screens from the outside. (Right now, the windows don't look clean because of the outdoor smudges.)
I have heard that you're supposed to use a particular kind of cleaning product and cleaning wipe for electronics, but I don't have one around the house, and I assumed that a tiny amount of water on a slightly-damp soft cloth couldn't hurt anything. I wiped off our computer tower, monitor, and keyboard. The dust between individual keys was giving me fits; I think I've seen some kind of telemarketing commercial for a product that blows dust off a keyboard, and it must be the only thing that works, because a cloth just didn't cut it. I hated to do it, but I left the computer and computer desk only about 99% clean and added "computer keyboard" to my mental list of failed projects that I'll need to re-evaluate at a later date.
All the furniture in our dining room is wood, though it doesn't match; this is also the least-decorated room in the house. There's one photo of the girls in a large frame, and we also have an antique plate from my grandfather on a stand atop the china cabinet. That's literally it. Any guesses on how long it took to clean this quadrant of the room? Only about 15 minutes, but I do need to go back and clean the light fixture. It's a hanging one, so I can reach it, but it had been on all morning and was too hot to touch. I turned it off after dusting the rest of the room, assuming I'd let it cool and then come back to it, but it completely slipped my mind until I sat down to write this post.
I approached the base boards with Lysol wipes (I had to buy a new can over the weekend!), which seems to be the most effective way. Unlike in the kitchen, I didn't go back over them with a dryer sheet. I'm going to assume that there is less dust and dog hair blowing around the carpeted area than on the tile. And...a quick run with the vacuum cleaner, and I was done!
This portion of the house seemed to go by really quickly. Honestly, it was simple, to, but I didn't "feel" like it was clean when I was done. I'm not sure whether it was because I skipped a few areas, such as the light fixtures, or because it wasn't as dirty in the first place (which means there wasn't a huge change to notice). Regardless, I can now say that the common areas in the house are acceptably clean, and that makes me feel like I've accomplished a great deal.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Living room
Day 3: The Living Room
The living room is longer than it is wide, so we have partitioned it off with a couch and a book case. One side is considered the actual living room, and the other side is our office/play area. Today, I tackled the living room itself.
Here's the action plan:
1. Take down and wash curtains
2. Attempt to clean the blinds AGAIN
3. Wash insides of windows and window tracks
4. Clean fan and light fixture
5. Clean fireplace
6. Dust all furniture
7. Vacuum floor
8. Steam clean carpet
After cleaning the breakfast nook on my first day of work, I knew what to expect with the windows. When I removed the curtains, I encountered dust and cobwebs. That didn't particularly please me, but I also wasn't surprised. A quick trip through the washing machine ended up taking care of the curtains, but I still have yet to find a successful way to clean the blinds. I earnestly tried to wipe each individual blind piece down with a cloth, but they still didn't come clean. My Love says that this size blinds cost $5.95 at Lowe's; there may be a few new sets in our future.
Cleaning the fan and lights was an uneventful task except that I was unable to hide the fact that I was climbing something from the kids. Mini-me stood at the base of the chair and kept up a running dialogue: "Mama, what are you doing?"
"I'm cleaning, sweetie."
"What are you cleaning?"
"I'm cleaning the lights and the fan."
"Oh...how did they get dirty?"
"They just did. They got dusty, and I need to get the dust off."
"Oh...can I help?"
"No, honey, you're too short."
"But I can climb up on a chair like you and reach them."
"Sweetie, you'd need a bigger chair than this one to be able to reach the lights."
"Well, you could go buy me one."
Eventually, I set she and Cuddles down at the dining room table with some play dough that they had found in an Easter egg hunt at their grandparents' house over the weekend. They were content to make "crackers", "pancakes", and "pretzels" for the next half hour (at which point, obviously, it was time for lunch).
The "most dirty place in the room" award goes to our fireplace. I found that incredibly interesting, since it hasn't been used since we moved into the house over four years ago. It doesn't really get cold enough to need fires around here, and we also don't want to worry with cleaning up ashes or keeping little fingers out of the grate. I figured I might find some dust in the fireplace, but no real dirt. Oh, was I wrong! To begin, I removed a decorative candle stand that we keep in there to keep it from looking stark. The top few coils were laced with spider webs covered in dust. As a side note, I abhor spiders. They make me scream and run the other direction. I almost stopped cleaning right then, but the fact that the webs were dusty led me to believe that the spider had likely already met his or her demise. I was correct; I later discovered his/her body underneath a candle that had been lit at Valentine's Day. As to the task at hand: I wiped down the candle stand with ACV, which was equally effective at removing dust, spider webs, and ash. I then wiped down the inside of the fireplace itself. To my surprise, our flue was open (and I have no idea how it got that way). I closed the flue, and when I did, a shower of ash fell into the fireplace. It was actually quite a chore to wipe it all out; when ash gets wet, it simply makes gray and black streaks, so I went through multiple cleaning rags and bowls of ACV in order to get it clean. My last fireplace task was to dust our screen. This proved to be the most difficult thing I've done yet other than cleaning the blinds. Dust particles clung to the mesh screen when I wiped them with the ACV. I ended up brushing the screen vigorously ("Mama, why are you hitting that?") to dislodge the dust. That just made the dust float in the air, but I was hoping that whatever surface it landed on would be easier to clean.
A quick pass over the furniture with Pledge and a rag, and I was ready to vacuum. Yes, again...the Beast had left a trail of dog food crumbs from her bowl to the couch, and the floor looked just as dirty as it had before I vacuumed yesterday. There was no help from the kids today, as they were busy with peanut-butter-and-local-honey sandwiches (which they would rather than than just about anything else I could make). And then I paused; in a strange twist of events, steam cleaning the carpets has become My Love's job. (The one time I tried I left puddles in the carpet.)
It was really pleasant for me to discover that most of the house isn't going to be as dirty as the kitchen was; dusting and vacuuming are chores I actually keep up with pretty consistently, and I'm hopping it will pay off as I work toward having the entire house cleaned at one time.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Epic Fail
I mentioned a few days ago that I was trying to clean my breakfast nook blinds and failed pretty badly. Actually, since then I've tried to clean five different sets of blinds, and I have yet to find an effective method. However, to paraphrase Thomas Edison, I haven't failed; I just discovered several different ways that are NOT useful for cleaning blinds.
Method A: The Cheater
My first attempt involved as little work on my part as possible. I was dusting every other surface in the house with a rag and some Pledge; why not the blinds? This didn't work, though. The dust clung stubbornly to the blinds, rather than wiping easily away like it does on a tabletop. I couldn't effectively scrub, because the blinds moved back and forth. I called it quits on this one after about five minutes of work.
Method B: The Sock Puppet
The next thing I tried came from here. It recommended using an old, large sock to cover my hand, then dunking the sock into a water and vinegar mixture. Theoretically, I could run my hand over each individual blind and the dust would stick to it. Apparently I have some particularly stubborn dust at my house, though, because all this effort did was create a muddy look on the blinds themselves. When I tried to rinse the sock in the ACV, the dust just stuck to it, and I felt like I was simply putting dust back on the blinds. I cleaned most of the blinds this way, but they looked so visibly dirty that I had to assume that this method was a failure.
Method C: The Splish Splash
Further searching revealed a series of websites like this one that recommended placing the blinds in a bathtub with warm water and dish soap. I tried the breakfast nook blinds in the tub, but they were too long to fit, so I can't, in good conscience, count that as an attempt. However, I DID put our living room blinds in the tub to give the method an honest effort. I let the blinds sit in the bathtub for about then minutes, then started separating the pieces and swishing them through the water with my hands. The site above recommended wearing gloves, but I didn't have any, so I skipped it. I now understand why they are essential. The mini blinds' edges are just barely sharp enough to cut fingers. It's only about as bad as a paper cut, but I do have about ten tiny cuts on both my hands. Now, this technique did get more dust and dirt off the blinds than any of the others have so far; the tub had noticeable dirt in the bottom when I was done. However, when I re-hung the blinds, they actually looked far worse than before. The dirt that remained had just rearranged itself and caked together, making muddy-looking streaks.
Method D: The Old School
At this point, I was starting to assume that it would be easier to throw the blinds away and buy new ones than to actually keep trying to clean them, but I wanted to at least try to finish the job I'd started. I got a roll of paper towels and set about wiping away all the excess water from the still-damp blinds, hoping to get off the dirt as I went. (And I got a lot of dirt.) However, when I stepped away and looked at the big picture, the blinds were STILL dirty. I then grabbed my handy-dandy Lysol wipes and started wiping each individual piece off with it. This method might have been effective, if I hadn't spent 15 minutes cleaning one set and gotten discouraged at the lack of pay-off for the amount of labor. (It would also be expensive; Lysol wipes are probably the most expensive cleaning item I'm using.)
Method E: The Big Guns
By now I was really frustrated, to the point that I was seriously considering tearing down each set of mini blinds in the house and throwing them away. Then I remembered that I had stumbled across another site that recommended what I thought at the time was an overly-involved and time-consuming method. Basically, it suggests hanging a set of blinds outside between two ladders and cleaning them, by hand, a little at a time with a spray bottle of cleaning solution (or ACV?) and a hose. We don't have two ladders, and I certainly don't have the time or space to take the blinds out in the driveway and clean them while corralling my kids, but it's starting to appear that this may be the only remaining option. (Except that I have read on another website that there are professional blind-cleaning companies. I wonder if they're worth it?)
Method A: The Cheater
My first attempt involved as little work on my part as possible. I was dusting every other surface in the house with a rag and some Pledge; why not the blinds? This didn't work, though. The dust clung stubbornly to the blinds, rather than wiping easily away like it does on a tabletop. I couldn't effectively scrub, because the blinds moved back and forth. I called it quits on this one after about five minutes of work.
Method B: The Sock Puppet
The next thing I tried came from here. It recommended using an old, large sock to cover my hand, then dunking the sock into a water and vinegar mixture. Theoretically, I could run my hand over each individual blind and the dust would stick to it. Apparently I have some particularly stubborn dust at my house, though, because all this effort did was create a muddy look on the blinds themselves. When I tried to rinse the sock in the ACV, the dust just stuck to it, and I felt like I was simply putting dust back on the blinds. I cleaned most of the blinds this way, but they looked so visibly dirty that I had to assume that this method was a failure.
Method C: The Splish Splash
Further searching revealed a series of websites like this one that recommended placing the blinds in a bathtub with warm water and dish soap. I tried the breakfast nook blinds in the tub, but they were too long to fit, so I can't, in good conscience, count that as an attempt. However, I DID put our living room blinds in the tub to give the method an honest effort. I let the blinds sit in the bathtub for about then minutes, then started separating the pieces and swishing them through the water with my hands. The site above recommended wearing gloves, but I didn't have any, so I skipped it. I now understand why they are essential. The mini blinds' edges are just barely sharp enough to cut fingers. It's only about as bad as a paper cut, but I do have about ten tiny cuts on both my hands. Now, this technique did get more dust and dirt off the blinds than any of the others have so far; the tub had noticeable dirt in the bottom when I was done. However, when I re-hung the blinds, they actually looked far worse than before. The dirt that remained had just rearranged itself and caked together, making muddy-looking streaks.
Method D: The Old School
At this point, I was starting to assume that it would be easier to throw the blinds away and buy new ones than to actually keep trying to clean them, but I wanted to at least try to finish the job I'd started. I got a roll of paper towels and set about wiping away all the excess water from the still-damp blinds, hoping to get off the dirt as I went. (And I got a lot of dirt.) However, when I stepped away and looked at the big picture, the blinds were STILL dirty. I then grabbed my handy-dandy Lysol wipes and started wiping each individual piece off with it. This method might have been effective, if I hadn't spent 15 minutes cleaning one set and gotten discouraged at the lack of pay-off for the amount of labor. (It would also be expensive; Lysol wipes are probably the most expensive cleaning item I'm using.)
Method E: The Big Guns
By now I was really frustrated, to the point that I was seriously considering tearing down each set of mini blinds in the house and throwing them away. Then I remembered that I had stumbled across another site that recommended what I thought at the time was an overly-involved and time-consuming method. Basically, it suggests hanging a set of blinds outside between two ladders and cleaning them, by hand, a little at a time with a spray bottle of cleaning solution (or ACV?) and a hose. We don't have two ladders, and I certainly don't have the time or space to take the blinds out in the driveway and clean them while corralling my kids, but it's starting to appear that this may be the only remaining option. (Except that I have read on another website that there are professional blind-cleaning companies. I wonder if they're worth it?)
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Can you get carpal tunnel syndrome from overuse of a sponge?
Day 1: Eat-in kitchen
To say that our house has a "breakfast nook" makes it seem much larger and more sophisticated than it really is. When I think of a breakfast nook, I imagine a gazebo-like outcropping of a fifty-year-old home, likely with a window seat, looking out into an immaculate backyard flower garden. Our home is not fifty years old and has no gazebo, window seat, or flower garden. What we DO have is a large kitchen with a bar across the middle of it. On the far side of the bar we have our everyday table and chairs (for my husband, my girls, and myself) and a well-used high chair (for Baby Boy).
I hope I'm not alone in saying that this particular portion of our home is always dirty. Always. Almost without exception. I could sweep it every day (at times I have, actually) and still find unidentifiable crumbs on the floor a short hour later. The sides of the table where the girls sit are sort of permanently encrusted with a combination of peanut butter, pancake syrup, and goldfish crumbs. The Beast does her part at cleaning up large table scraps, but her attentions can't begin to make up for a thorough cleaning.
The Action Plan:
- Take down and wash curtains.
- Clean blinds.
- Wash windows.
- Remove and wash window screens.
- Dust wall art and wine rack.
- Scour clean booster seat and high chair (washing covers as appropriate).
- Clean chairs and table, then polish.
- Empty baker's rack, thoroughly wipe surfaces and drawers, and reorganize contents.
- Wipe floorboards.
- Sweep and mop.
That process took about five hours, with appropriate breaks in the middle for feeding the baby, changing diapers (on Cuddles AND Baby Boy), and fixing snacks and lunches. It wasn't as easy as I expected, and I was unpleasantly surprised at the amount of dirt I removed.
I performed the bulk of my cleaning with apple cider vinegar. A friend had told me that it was a good cleaning agent without the toxicity of ammonia, so I went with it. I had an enormous bottle that would have been appropriate for doing bicep curls; by the end of the morning, it was empty. As I wiped down an area and the water got too dirty, which was often, I'd dump it out and start fresh.
The tracks of the windows may have been the nastiest part of the entire room. Granted, they are sort of on the outside of the house, so what I was wiping up was literally dirt blown in from the back yard. Oh, and a few dead spiders and a small, desiccated frog. I was able to clean the window tracks easily enough, but I ran into a snag when I couldn't figure out how to remove the window screens. This site explained how to clean them, and it sounded pretty straightforward, but I will need to wait until I can get My Love to remove them later. I also cleaned the windows themselves the "traditional" way, with Windex (the generic brand, anyway). I found some advice about cleaning windows with a squeegee here. It sounded smart, but like a lot of work, so I skipped it. As it turns out, Windex really just seems to rearrange the streaks, so I may have to return to the squeegee method anyway.
I washed the curtains, and was appalled at the dust that came off. We hung the curtains (homemade by my mother-in-law) when we moved into the house four years ago. And they haven't come down since. Though they were dusty, it came off easily in the wash.
I also removed the window blinds and tried to give them a good cleaning, using several different methods which I'll detail in another post. Let's just say that it was a complete and utter failure.
Dusting of the light fixtures, wall art, and baker's rack were uneventful, quick, and easy. It's really amazing how much cleaner the room looked after cleaning just those items!
Cuddles's booster seat is perpetually dirty, and I had resigned myself to the face that it would always be that way. However, with diligent effort (and no instruction manual) I figured out how to remove and machine-wash the straps, then scrub the surface with apple cider vinegar followed by a Lysol wipe. It now looks brand-new!
The breakfast room table is significantly older than I am. We got the table when my grandfather passed away, and he's had it as long as I can remember. It's solid wood, but a bit rickety, and the stain has definitely seen better days. One of the most difficult aspects of the table is the drop leafs on each end. Unbeknownst to me, every spill and crumb that could manage it had worked its way into the crevices. When I dropped the leaves, I encountered "gunk" that I had to scrub off with the textured side of my well-used kitchen sponge.
Sweeping the floor didn't turn up anything more interesting than what a mom would find on her kitchen floor on a daily basis. After the sweeping, though, I bit the bullet. After hearing a friend tell me that she used to scrub her kitchen floor on her hands and knees every day (before she had kids, she admitted), I decided I needed to try it at least once in my life. I wiped down the baseboards with my trusty apple cider vinegar; according to this website it's something that should be done weekly. I'm not sure it's every been done. I understandably came up with a lot of dirt. Afterwards I scrubbed the floor with a sponge, hitting the sticky spots that I would normally miss with a mop. And I have to say, the kitchen floor almost sparkled.
I moved all the furniture and curtains back into their places and was proud. The house had that "clean" smell that I craved, and one room was as spic-and-span as I could hope to make it. Today went so well that I have the motivation to continue!
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