Keeping your home and carpets fresh when you have a pet is a big job. I have had a cat and a dog for many years who are house trained, but there are times when one or both of them will have an accident on the floor. Of course, it is usually on the floor that is carpeted, not the tiled floor. Here are a few tips for getting and keeping your home free from pet odors and stains.
It is not a good idea to use a commercial cleaner since most of them contain chemicals that can be harmful to …read more

What can I say about the living room? After the kitchen, my living room is the busiest area in the whole house. The only ones living in the house are my husband and myself, but at times it looks like there’s a whole tribe camped out here. Yes, it get’s that dirty.
I love to listen to music and dance, well it’s what I call dancing, while I dust and straighten up. I am sure that you have mismatched socks around the house so put on aside for dusting. Spray the sock with furniture polish, put it on like a mitten …read more

With the holidays so close, and so much shopping, cleaning and decorating to do, I thought I might share some of my household tips with you. Some of these tips may be familiar, but I hope some will be new to you and help you with a lot of your household chores.
When you use scouring soap pads like Brillo or SOS, if you’re like me you never seem use the entire pad and it sits on your sink and rusts. From now on when you buy soap pads cut them in half and use half at a time. It keeps …read more

If you’re like me then you hate to clean the bathroom. It used to be too much of a hassle until I found a few short cuts to help.
Toilet Bowl:
If you find that commercial toilet cleaners are too expensive then there is a cheaper way to get a spotless toilet bowl. Just put a cup of vinegar in the bowl and swish it with your toilet brush.
Hard Water:
To get water stains off of the bottom of your tub, use a paste of vinegar and baking soda. Don’t use this on fiberglass as the baking soda could scratch but on …read more

When someone visits your home the first thing they will notice is how it smells. Like I said before I am a sniffer. I sniff everything from a glass, before I drink from it, to the family room to make sure there are no unflattering, lingering scents. There are times when my house picks up the scents of my cooking and I don’t readily notice. So I make it a point to deodorize after cleaning.
There are plenty of commercial product on the market to extinguish offensive smells, but I would rather use ordinary everyday solutions.
If you have an offensive smell …read more

There never seems to be enough time in a day for me and I’m sure it is the same for you. I came to the conclusion recently that I needed to set up a time schedule for myself and it really helps. We all need to make the most of our available time in a way that is constructive.
Here are a few tips to help you spend your time wisely.
Create a schedule and stick to it. It will be hard to do at first, but will become easier; make it a habit.
Prioritize chores and activities daily. Do the …read more

If you have carpet in your home, it will take a little work to keep it clean.  Here are some tips for keeping your carpet smelling fresh.

1)  Take off your shoes when you come into the house.  Your shoes have dirt, leaves, and germs from other places you have been.
2)  Have your carpets cleaned a few times each year.  You can do this yourself if you have a steam cleaner or you can rent a machine for about $30-40 per day.  If you’re able to, you can hire a professional to clean the carpets.
3)  Keep a rug over high traffic …read more

Kitchens tend to be a dumping ground for everything.  We walk in the door and drop our keys, purse, mail, and shopping bags on the counter.  We put away the groceries and somewhere in our subconsciousness find it ok to leave the mail there.  Next thing we know, we have a few little items scattered throughout the room.  

I am guilty of disorganization in my kitchen.  I am trying to get better though.  Here are a few kitchen organizing tips.
1)  Put things away when you’re done using them.  If we did this with everything our lives would be so much cleaner …read more

It seemed that no matter how careful I was while cooking, I still had issues with food and grease getting stuck to my stove top.  I would wipe the stove, let the hot wash rag sit on the stains, add dishwashing liquid, and some other cleaners, but I could not get it cleaned properly.  After complaining to my mom about the stuck on grease and food on my stove top, she suggested that I try Fantastik cleaner.

This is a picture of my stove top with the burners removed. Although this picture does not show all of the mess, you can …read more

I have this issue with mopping my bathroom floors.  I don’t like to use a mop because it seems like the floors don’t get as clean as I like them.  When I hand mop the floor, I see all kinds of dirt and hair that the broom and mop did not get.  I also see the dust on the cabinets, baseboards, and such and I end up wiping those down too.  The problem is, I don’t hand clean my floor as often as I should because it takes so much longer.  Basically, my preference for cleanliness is getting in the way of …read more