I have to say that snow days in this house are WONDERFUL. I work outside of the home so when I have a chance to stay home for a day I seriously get all giddy inside. My 2 year old daughter and I enjoy breakfast together, play with her toys, and of course I get some extra time to clean around the house. It just so happens that last week I had three, yes three, snow days in a row. On one of these snow days I decided that I could perhaps turn on the television for a few minutes. The Rachel Ray show was on with guest Liz Vaccariello. She had a great bit about "odd" items that could be washed right in your dishwasher. I was instantly hooked and knew that I just had to share these great items with you. Just click on the link to watch the great video with instructions on how to wash each item. Here are a few of the items that you just might want to stick right in your dishwasher. For a complete lists check out the website and video.
• Baseball caps - just stick it on the top rack, it won't move, and will come out nice and clean.
• Makeup and hair brushes - stick them in the silverware rack. How genius is that?
Posted by Tami on Feb 13 11 | Comments (2)
Categories: Kitchen,
I've mentioned before that my husband and I are coffee drinkers. We love our coffee and make sure we have it with us before we head out the door each morning. We have some very nice stainless steel travel mugs that begin to smell quickly from the milk/creamer we put in our coffee each morning. The water and dish soap was just not helping get rid of the smell. Therefore, I found a solution!
Pour approximately one Tbls. of baking soda and 1/4 cup of vinegar into the travel mug and filled with a small amount of water. It will fiz for just a few seconds and then you can fill up the rest with water. Then set the lid to the side and make sure the opening to the lid is shut tight. Pour a very small amount of baking soda and vinegar into the lid and lay it to the side. Allow the mug/lid to sit for about 2 hours and then washed both with dish soap and hot water. VOILA!! The smell is gone and you have a fresh clean travel mug once again. Try it out!
Posted by Tami on Aug 10 10 | Comments (2)
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Spider webs and dirt collect quickly in the corners of the every room. Therefore, we must make them GO AWAY! This is something that should be done more than just the spring and fall. Simply take a dust wand such as this Swiffer Duster and begin by going all around the room where the wall and ceiling connect. Then take the duster down the corners of each wall from top to floor. I go over the woodwork, too as well as any spots on the ceiling. The light fixtures and the tops of my curtains can use a quick cleaning too. You can also use the attachments on your vacuum cleaner. I use the round brush on the end of my attachment and go over everything. It's amazing when you start looking for these dust collector spots, you think to yourself, "how do they get here? I clean every week!" Good thing it really doesn't take very long to get rid of them!!
Posted by Kim on Aug 2 10 | Comments (1)
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I love love having a clean kitchen. I do not love love cleaning the kitchen. It just seems like there are so many nooks and crannies and appliances PLUS there is the floor that is usually pretty dirty. As I was thinking the other day about how I clean my kitchen I surmised that we could gain a lot of knowledge by sharing with each other how we clean certain rooms in our house. I know it's not rocket science and that there is no WRONG way to clean a room, however I thought it might be helpful to share what and how we clean the room. This brings me back to the kitchen. I thought it might be a great place to start. Over the next few months we'll be sharing a little about how and when to clean items in each room of the house. So here it goes!
Step One: I begin with my counters. I use a damp rag with comet or an all purpose cleaner and scrub all counters and light switches.
Step Two: I then move to appliances.
- Microwave - I use an all purpose cleaner and thoroughly wipe off the front and inside of the microwave. If the tray inside is too dirty I wash it in the sink. I then dry it off with a cloth or paper towel.
- Oven - I have a glass top oven. Therefore, I use my homemade glass cleaner and wipe off the top, the knobs, and the front of the stove. I occasionally use a special "glass top" cleaner, but for the most part as long as I wipe it off daily and scrape any burns off, it stays clean. If you have the coil stove, you take each part off and wash in the sink with water and soap if necessary. Then reassemble. Ok, here comes the shocker. I DO NOT have a self cleaning oven and I hate it!!! I wipe out the oven with my all purpose cleaner and promise myself that I'm going to REALLY clean it soon, but then don't. So, I promise a post soon about how I cleaned it and it's shiny new!
- Dishwasher - I wipe off the inside and outside with my damp cloth.
- Refrigerator - for my weekly cleaning I simply wipe off the refrigerator with a damp cloth. Go here for more details on giving your refrigerator a good and thorough cleaning!
- Other appliances - I am a minimalist when it comes to keeping appliances on the counter. However, I wipe down any appliances (hello coffee pot!) that are on top of the counters and clean underneath them.
Step Three: Sink - I pour some comet in the sink and scrub real good! Then I wipe it out with a damp rag.
Step Four: Floors - I move out all of the chairs, sweep and scrub with soap and water! I switch every other week between on my hands and knees or the Swiffer. My mom just purchased the Shark Vac and Steam and I must say I am very jealous! She got a super good deal at Kohl's with her 30% off!! Hopefully she'll be telling us more about it soon!
Extras - There are still other extras that you can do such as wipe down any pictures or other items you have hanging in your kitchen and clean the lighting if you'd like. I need to be honest and say there is no way I have time to do these every time I clean the kitchen! I'm lucky if I get on my hands and knees and scrub the floors.
CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE FINISHED!
So do tell us. How do you go about cleaning your kitchen?
Posted by Tami on Jul 26 10 | Comments (5)
Categories: Kitchen,
It seems like windows are constantly getting dirty! Back in the day (am I that old that I can say that?), people cleaned their windows once in the spring & once in the fall. However, we live in the country so I'm cleaning my windows almost once a month! It depends on where you live, but everyone needs to clean them some time; so here are a few suggestions:
We recently got new windows & they are vinyl-clad, so I wipe off the vinyl first to get any dust off of them. I use a damp rag or paper towel.
If you have wood trim & windowsills, which we used to have, I either clean them with a damp rag & dry them off; or use my dust cloth to get the dust off of them.
During the warmer weather, of course, the screens are in and they get quite dirty. There are a few different ways to clean your screens:
- Take the screens out of the windows. Get a rag and a scrub brush and scrub them on both sides with soap and water. Then rinse them with the outside hose. Let them dry in the sun before putting them back in the window. I'll still do that a couple of times a year.
- Get some warm water with a little soap in it and dampen a rag and wipe it over the inside and outside of the screen. It really works and you'll be amazed how much dirt is in the bucket!
Once you have cleaned the screens, you use window cleaner (Tami's recipe coming very soon) and paper towels. Spray and dry off the inside, then do the outside of the windows. It's nice if you have a helper. Then one can be inside and one outside....it gets done much quicker! I've tried different things to dry the windows with and paper towels still works best for me. I've tried rags and newspaper, but they don't do as good of a job as the paper towels. **If anyone has any something they clean their windows with that you'd like to share, please do! It's such a great feeling standing back and looking at all your hard work!
Posted by Kim on Jul 9 10 | Comments (0)
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