Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Deep Green Cleaning: Day 16 - Carpets

Today, we are going to clean the carpets in the living room.  If you own your own carpet cleaner, you can just focus on the living room today.  If you have to rent a carpet cleaner and you are anything like me, this will create a frenzy of 24 hours of cleaning all the carpets in the entire house!  Either way, you may want to save this job for when you can work on this for an entire day.
 

What you will need:

  • Vacuum cleaner
  • Carpet Cleaner - after getting a new puppy at Christmas, this is the one I ordered online and LOVE!!! 
It is worth every penny!!  I've cleaned a lot of carpets, in my own home and commercially, and this is by far the best machine I have used!

What to do:

  • Remove as much of the furniture from the room as you can.
  • Vacuum the entire room, taking special care to get the edges around the room.

  • Spray the Carpet Stain Buster on all visable stains throughout the room.  You can also use the Envirocloth with just water to remove as many stains as possible, too. 
  • Fill the tank of you carpet cleaner with one scoop of Ultra Power Plus Laundry detergent and hot water to the fill line.  (If you are concerned with the color steadfastness of your carpet, try this in a small out of the way area first. This Bissell is so great, because it has a small hose that you can do a small area first.)
  • Clean the carpet!  This is the fun part!  (I know, sick!)  I usually start on the far end and work in squares across the room, ending at the entryway of the room, so I don't have to keep walking over the clean area.
  • Now is the tricky part - stay off the carpet for at least 12 hours!

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Green Deep Cleaning: Day 15 - Electronics

 
If you haven't noticed, in each room, we've been trying to move from top to bottom with our cleaning.  So in the living room, we've cleaned the Chairs & Couches, the Woodwork, the Walls, and Organized the shelves and Drawers.  Be sure to check out those articles if you haven't already.

Today, we are going to do a clean-up of all the electronics in the living room.

You will need:

What to clean today:

  • Start off by cleaning all of the screens in the living room with the Optic Cloth.  Using a cloth that is not approved for this job can scratch you screens!  The Optic Cloth is approved and works great at not only cleaning, but repelling future dust. Here's a list that I came up with:
    • Computers
    • Television
    • IPads & Tablets
    • Smart Phones
    • Small Gaming devices
  • Once the screen is cleaned, you'll want to go all the way around your electronic and dust off the backs and the cords with the Dust Mitt.  In fact, if you have two of those Dust Mitts, put one on each hand, so you can pick everything up and dust as you go.
  • As long as you're fussing with the chords, go ahead and coral all those cords.  I don't know why, but in our house, the cords need to be rebunched and tied up with zip ties.  You can get all sorts of fancy items to bunch your cords together, but I find that zip ties are not too expensive and readily available at your local hardware store or on Amazon.
    Zip Ties
  • Next, you will gather all of those chords and small electronic devices into one place.  I know eventually they get loose and go all over the house, but at least to have a place to put all of your devices in one place is a great start to keeping the clutter down.  Here's a look at my favorite electronic collector - the Double Duty Caddy that I found on Pinterest!  You can even personalize it to say "Cords & Charges".  I love that!

Ten years ago, I would have never dreamed that I would spend a day cleaning just the electronics in the living room, but seriously, electronics have taken over!  My living room is the gathering place for all things electronics, because the kids aren't allowed to have electronics in their bedrooms. 

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Valentine's Happy Mail

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's a happy mail that I sent out to the customer on my Facebook VIP page that won a drawing for the Superbowl.  The winner happened to be my mom, so it made it extra fun to send some Happy Mail.
 
I bought a Valentine's Candy Heart box and put my message on the front with an address sticker, and then put an address label on the back with the addresses.  I took the whole thing down to the post office to mail.  It cost around $3 to ship!  Not bad! 
 
It's so fun to get odd items in the mail!  You could do this for a college student (which I also did) or for a past hostess to tell them how much you love them or their business.
 
Here's my message:
"Mom - I LOVE that you played along for my Superbowl party!  Customers are the HEART of my business!  Thanks!"

 
 
Even though today is Valentine's Day, you could still do this for past hostesses or special customers!  Go out tomorrow, the day after and buy up heart candy boxes and send them out to say "thanks for being the HEART of my business!"  It would catch their attention and make you stand out in their minds as a business person they want to go with in the future!  Plus, who doesn't love chocolate?
 


Thursday, February 9, 2017

Green Deep Cleaning: Day 14 - Organize shelves and Drawers


Today is your chance to clean out any drawers or shelves in the Living Room! There's nothing really complicated about this day, but if you are like me, it's a much needed day!
 
Wipe off/out drawers with the EnviroCloth and apply that Oil/Vinegar mix as mentioned before to any wood that you are cleaning.
 
I love everyone else's shelves!  I love to peruse Pinterest for all kinds of ideas on how to make my living room shelves look like a magazine.  What am drawn to?  Well, simplified shelves! 
 

 Here's what I like for my shelves:

  • Simple, small collections, grouped together
  • Books in order of size, tallest to shortest, or visa versa.
  • If function is needed (i.e. videos, or remotes, etc.), use baskets or bins to organize clutter
  • Pick a 3-4 items of interest to "decorate" (this could be a globe, a vase, an antique camera, whatever)

I love how this shelving unit, although it's for an office, has the bins to reign in the clutter, yet has a few decorations as well as some books to add!   The order makes me happy.  Let's face it, most people don't have the luxury of having shelves that don't need to function for storage in their living room. 
 
For me, I homeschool in the living room, and have only one shelf available in our small living room - so it's where all the homeschool books live.  Pretty bags are where the daily school books are kept on my living room shelf, and then the rest of the shelf is just books and bibles.  Not fancy, but the clutter does get crazy regularly! 
 
So that's it!  Today you just clean and simplify your shelves so it feels clean! 

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Green Deep Cleaning: Day 13 - Walls

Today's chore for Green Deep Cleaning the Living Room is to wash all of the walls.  I know!  Frankly, this is not something I think about doing very often, but once you start, you realize how dirty the walls really are.  My warning for this is that after inspecting and cleaning the walls really closely, you may decide you want to put a new coat of paint on them.  At least, this is what happens to me!

What you will need to wash the walls:

How to clean the walls:

  • I start on one wall, and then methodically work my way around the room.
  • For each section of wall, take the pictures off the wall. Wipe them down.

  • Lock the Mop head into position and attach the dust pad (the yellow pad) to the mop. Wipe down the wall with the Mop (yes you saw that right!  This Mop works so well on the walls, I actually get excited to wash the walls!)
  • Next, replace the dust pad with a wet (with water only) mop pad.  The wet pad is the blue one. Wash the wall.
  • Be sure to get the baseboards clean while washing the walls.  Depending on the size of your baseboards, you may have to go back with the EnviroCloth and wipe them down, but I always try to get that Mop to work on them first! (I'm a lazy cleaner!)
  • Use the EnviroCloth to clean up any spots, stains or corners that the Mop misses.  (Not usually very many things, but just in case.)
That's it, make your way around the room washing all of the walls in the room!

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Green Deep Cleaning: Day 12 - Woodwork

Today's Deep Cleaning is going to be all of the woodwork and furniture in the Living Room. The product I love the most to rejuvenate my woodwork is my Vinegar/Oil Combination.

To see more details on how this process works, go to my posting this day.  Are you sticking with me on this far in your deep cleaning?  For me, focusing on just one area at a time, or even just one chore each day, makes the entire process of Deep Cleaning seem doable. 

Friday, February 3, 2017

Green Deep Cleaning: Day 11 - Chairs & Couches

Now that we've Green Deep Cleaned the Kitchen and the Laundry Room, let's move on to the living room.  Today, we will be cleaning the chairs and couches that have cushions.

What you will need to clean your Living Room Chairs & Couches:

What to do:

  •  If you have any covers on your couches or chairs, before removing the cover, spray the UPP/water spray bottle on any stains, to pre-treat them.
  • Throw the covers into the washing machine with a scoop of UPP.  They'll be all ready and clean after you're done cleaning everything up!
  • Next, determine what kind of fabric your couch is made of.  Here is what the tags may mean:
W: OK to use water for cleaning.
S: Only use a solvent-based cleaner on fabric.
SW: Either water or a solvent cleaner is safe to use.
X: Only use a vacuum for cleaning.
  • If water is safe, go over all of the fabric, or microfiber couches with a wet (with only water) Envirocloth, wiping any of the stains or spots clean. This Envirocloth, is not just any rag or cleaning cloth, it really works to clean stains as well as 99% of the bacteria!  This should take care of most stains on the couches.
  • For any tough stains, spray a small amount of the UPP/water mix onto the stain, and wipe clean with the Envirocloth.
  • If you have any leather chairs, the Leather Shine with do wonders for those pieces of furniture.
  • Treat any of the wooden legs of the couches and chairs with the vinegar/oil treatment from the kitchen cupboards.
  • Next, take all those cushions out of the couch and use the vacuum cleaner to clean all of the crevices of the couch.
  • If you have fabric couches, you may want to treat all of the cushions and couches with the Mattress Cleaner.  This will get ride of more stains and the ever present dust mites!  I have allergies, so this is a must for me!
Here's my disclaimer:  I am an Independent Norwex Consultant and make a commission on any purchases made from my website.  This in turn, provides for my family, so I thank you for all purchases and support!

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Snow Day

Don't you love a snow day?  We homeschool, and we still get excited about snow days from school.  Don't ask me why, because we still have school on snow days!  But, there really is a thing of wonder when it snows enough to cancel everything!  What do you do for snow days?