Category: cleaning

Baby Steps Lead From Clutter to Calm

I recently read about a couple who live in Oklahoma City. They don’t have a lot of clutter in their house, but they do find it impossible to part with their children’s things. The guest cottage behind their house is nearly filled with old toys, outgrown clothes, years of kids’ artwork, school papers, trophies, sports…


Power-Wash Cleaning Do’s and Don’ts

A power washer is a versatile machine that can help restore sparkle and shine to a variety of surfaces in your home. If you don’t want to invest in your own power washer, they are readily available for rent at home supply and hardware stores. However, before you enthusiastically hook up the hose and douse…


Protect Your Deck With Proper Maintenance

The inevitable is bound to happen: Your beautiful new deck will age. But you can determine how gracefully it ages. “It’s not maintenance-free to put wood outside,” says deck designer John Breiling. “When you spend $10 to $12 per square foot of deck, you want to care for your wood. It can be tough when…


How to Clean Gunk and Grime From Kitchen Cabinets

Kitchen cabinets are for storing dishes, not grease. Unfortunately, wood cabinets, whether painted or natural with a clear finish, are prone to all sorts of grease, grime, and gunk from simply being in the kitchen. Depending on just how much grease and grime you’re looking at and the supplies you have available, here are several…


8 Things That Should Never Go in the Dryer

Clothes pinned to a clothesline flapping in the breeze and drying in the sunshine is a visual that brings me back to my childhood. And oh, that amazing smell of line-dried clean sheets. Know what I mean? Modern-day clothes dryers have almost completely replaced traditional outdoor clotheslines. A clothes dryer is a convenient appliance that…


How to Get Rid of Almost Anything

The key to finding happiness in your decluttering efforts is answering this question: Once you decide to ditch your stuff, what do you do with it? Unless your soon-to-be-former possessions truly qualify as trash, you won’t want to set them out at the curb on pickup day to clog up your local landfill. Instead, the…


Simple Organization and Storage Tips

“Sorry my place is such a mess!” If you have to pull out that one every time you welcome friends or family into your house, it might be time to get organized. Marla Cilley, also known as the FlyLady, calls that CHAOS: Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome! Organization is an important aspect of any home….


You’ll Want to Make a Batch of This DIY Upholstery Cleaner

While we have lots of DIY cleaner recipes in our “Everyday Cheapskate” arsenal, a reliable upholstery cleaner was missing. Now, we can check it off the list with this new handy, effective DIY recipe for homemade upholstery cleaner. You’ll need: Fels-Naptha laundry bar soap, borax, and boiling water (the former two are available in most…


5 Things to Spring-Clean Right Now—and a Few That Can Wait Until Fall

When it’s time to spring-clean, we may think we have to tackle every single item on the to-do list right away. But actually, there are some home maintenance tasks that it’s better to wait until fall to complete. To help you sort out which things to spring-clean ASAP and which can be safely put off…


How to Organize and Declutter Your Home, Room by Room

Wondering how to begin decluttering your home? Take a mental inventory of what you see and write down how the room makes you feel. Then, close your eyes and imagine what you want your new space to look like. Write down how the new vision makes you feel, and place this in a prominent spot…