Archive for June, 2010
Quickie Clean Up
We’ve already shared a slew of homemade cleaning recipes, chatted about our own housekeeping habits, and even highlighted some easy home freshening ideas from Real Simple magazine, but we’re back with an error proof roundup of fast and easy fixes to leave you with a sparkly clean casa in no time. And perhaps best of all, these are all 100% free solutions, assuming you have some basics on hand, and each suggestion has three steps or less to keep things oh so doable. But enough chit chat. Let the cleaning frenzy begin!
Oh and just to demonstrate how easy and speedy they really are, we’re including a handy little timetable, so you can pick a cleaning time span (either 7 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 45 minutes) and follow our minute-by-minute guide below:
If you have seven minutes…
- Place a bowl of coffee beans or a box of baking soda in a musty closet, cabinet or drawer and leave it overnight to absorb the odor (1 minute).
- Quarter a lemon and place it in a bowl of water. Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Then wipe down the entire microwave with a moist rag, which is easy thanks to the lemony steam you created (3 minutes)
- Take your quartered lemon and slip each part into your sink’s garbage disposal while it’s on with the water running- this will freshen the air as well as cleanse the actual disposal line (1 minute)
- Use a vinegar soaked rag to remove hard water stains from your shower head, faucets, etc (2 minutes)
If you have fifteen minutes then do all of the above PLUS…
- Sprinkle baking soda on a musty carpet, let stand one minute, then vacuum the baking soda up- along with the odor (3 minutes)
- Pour one part baking soda followed by one part vinegar down the drain, let stand for one minute, then rinse to clean out the pipes in an 100% natural way (3 minutes)
- Open all the windows to air out the house (2 minutes)
If you have thirty minutes then do all of the above PLUS…
- Add one part vinegar and one part water to a spray bottle and spray down mold or mildew, then just scrub it away with a textured sponge or rag and rinse it clean (6 minutes).
- Wipe down your stainless steel appliances with a vinegar soaked rag (9 minutes)
If you have forty five minutes then do all of the above PLUS…
- Dust with a microfiber cloth- see how we get ‘er done right here (15 minutes)
Then you pretty much just have regular maintenance like toilet cleaning and vacuuming to do. And look at all the bonus super-thorough cleaning projects you were able to bang out in just a smidge of time. We’re rarely “inspired” to clean, but seeing that it can be done simply, on the cheap, naturally, and in less than three steps per task really makes it not-so-bad. And it’s amazing how good a clean microwave or a shiny new-looking shower head can make you feel. But now we’re turning it over to you guys. We’d love to hear your affordable and easy house cleaning tips. Do tell.
Psst- Wanna keep your cleaning mojo going? Check out a slew of homemade cleaning recipes, peep our own housekeeping habits, and peruse some super easy home freshening ideas from Real Simple.
First image from here, all following images from here.
Reader Redesign: Headboard Happiness
When Jennae sent over her bedroom before and after photos we had to share her DIY headboard project. Here’s her letter:
My husband and I live in a rental, we’re on a budget, and we love all things green (as indicated by my blog) – so decorating the bedroom wasn’t the easiest task. Our biggest challenge was what to do for a headboard. We searched the web for headboard ideas & tutorials (including yours) and then I finally remembered a product I’d featured on my blog a while back: Wall Flats from Inhabit Living. Wall flats are essentially paintable 3-dimensional wallpaper, although it feels more like stiff lightweight cardboard. They’re made of bamboo pulp and completely biodegradable at the end of their life cycle, so they met our green criteria. And a box of 10 tiles typically costs $86, but ever on a budget, we bought their “second-quality” wall flats (think irregular clothing) at $4.50 apiece. A miscalculation on my part meant we bought 12 tiles, but we only wound up needing 9. Still, even though we bought too many, our headboard still only cost us $55, plus $10 worth of foam tape, and we’re thrilled with the way it turned out. You can see how the whole room came together in this post. You’ll see we changed quite a few things in the “after” photo, but the headboard and the bedding were the biggest changes. – Jennae
Here’s her room before the big headboard undertaking (ignore her husband, he was warned he’d be published if he didn’t move):
And here’s the same room after a little DIY headboard magic:
Didn’t Jennae do a great job? We love that she used discounted wall flats to get a great textured look on a budget- and since she’s a renter they’re completely removable (so they can go with her when she moves on). And considering that most headboards are hundreds of dollars (and she used eco materials- which are usually a lot more pricey!) we think she scored one heckova deal. Plus we love how modern and textured it all looks- especially when paired with such a lovely duvet with those great printed pillows and lamp shades. What do you guys think? Anyone itching to take on a project like this? It makes us wish we had another bedroom to tackle.
Burning Question: Feeling Gifted?
This week we’re back with one of those questions that can seriously stump people (read: us). What do you do when people give you home-decor type gifts that you don’t really like? Say your mother-in-law is constantly buying stuff to spruce up your space (but you’re less than enthused at the items of her choosing). Do you put the stuff out for a while and then gradually move it into storage? Do you just learn to love it and display it for the long haul? Do you only put it out when the gift giver is visiting? Do you admit off the bat that it’s not your style and ask if they’d mind if you exchanged it for something that’s more your speed?
We’re itching to hear where you stand on the issue. In fact, we whipped up this handy little poll to keep everything tabulated:
[poll id="17"]
We’d love to hear more about why you voted the way you did, so feel free to comment away with more details.
Image courtesy of Essere Organics.
Our House In Pasadena?
Ok, so this is right up there with the weirdest thing we’ve ever seen in our past almost-three-years as bloggers. Recently a reader (thanks Sara!) wrote alerting us that she had seen photos of our living room and guest bedroom on a vacation rental site called Airbnb. And apparently the “landlord” was claiming that they were photos of their house in Pasadena- and charging $48 a night with priority to anyone who booked it for one or two weeks straight (to the tune of $336 to $672) since they “received so much interest.”
Isn’t that weird???? What happens when people get there and it doesn’t look like that? Or maybe it doesn’t get that far because it’s all a scam and this person takes the money and runs without providing an address? Either way we were adequately skeeved out. And of course we contacted both the webmaster of the site along with the “landlord” to let them know that those images were ours and they were firmly planted in Richmond and not for rent. Pretty soon thereafter they were removed. Whew. But so odd right?!
It ranked up there with the time that another reader (thanks Michael!) wrote to us shortly after our big bathroom reveal to tell us that they saw some girl named Amber on Rate My Space claiming our bathroom after photos as hers.
The good news is that it was getting great feedback. But the bad news was that it wasn’t her bathroom! The funniest thing about that situation was that Amber was answering questions about the paint color and where she got things (all of which were wrong, so we were totally confused to see her claim that our $100 Overstock sink was a $400 splurge from Kohler and that the walls were some shade called Cucumber Dream instead of the actual Dune Grass hue that we used). Isn’t that weird? Of course we just commented under the post with a link to our site saying “Wait- that’s actually our bathroom! You can see where we got everything and how it all came together by following this link.” Literally within a minute the post was removed.
Actually now that we think about it, the Rate My Space thing might have been stranger than the room rental incident because the room rental person seemed to be in it for the money, so the idea of a scammer stealing a photo and trying to make some loot with it kind of makes sense. But isn’t it odd that someone found a photo of our bathroom and thought it would somehow be rewarding to claim it as their own on Rate My Space (where there’s no dough on the line)? Maybe she didn’t feel like redoing her bathroom so she thought using our photos would be a shortcut? Or she thought it would be funny? Consider us stumped.
Thank goodness for all of our lovely readers who have eagle eyes and thoughtfully email us every time they see our casa somewhere that it doesn’t belong. We’re used to hearing that our pictures are on eBay or Craigslist when someone’s trying to sell an identical rug or duvet. And we even saw before and after photos of our front yard on some landscaping guy’s website in Texas (so crazy, right?!). But the latest Rate My Space and vacation rental listing have been the most odd by far. What do you guys think? Can you figure out some ulterior motive for the Rate My Space thing? Have you ever seen your photos somewhere they didn’t belong? Do tell.
Father Lowe’s Best: Freebie Winner!
Thanks for getting into the Father’s Day spirit with us a bit early this week in honor of our big Dad Day giveaway from Lowe’s. It sounds like you all have some wonderful dads in your lives, and Sherry and I will join the chorus by saying Happy Father’s Day to Ken, Tom, Jack, Harry, Emanuel, Theodore and Carmen (our various fathers and grandfathers) for the plethora of skills and values that they passed down along the way.
And we should also extend that “Happy Father’s Day” message to the dad who will be enjoying this week’s pair of prizes courtesy of Lowe’s: the Char-Broil Urban Grill and the Fiskars Momentum Reel Mower. But even if you’re not the big winner this week, Lowe’s can still help you score some last-minute gifts (they’ve even conveniently organized them by price on their web site).
But enough chatter. Let’s get to the big winner. After we wooed random.org with a terribly tacky tie (in the spirit of Father’s Day) it spit out the name of this week’s lucky lady… Jannell (who in some psychic twist predicted that she’d celebrate her father this weekend by giving him a grill and reel mower). Congrats! We hope your dad enjoys his extra special day – along with all of the other poppas that everyone has mentioned.
So go celebrate, honor, and remember your fathers and grandfathers this weekend. And remember to swing back through here on Monday for an awesomely artful giveaway…
Find more freebie info on our Giveaway FAQs page. Pics courtesy of Lowe’s.
