Skip to main content

Adulting 101: Cleaning Hacks (feat. Maggie Hundley)

Hey there folks! After reading some of my other Adulting 101 posts, my wife, Maggie, came up with some content for this series. She asked if she could join write some posts, and I'm glad to have her on here. That said, I'm going to take a backseat here and let her share with you some cleaning hacks. Let's get into it!


My husband has been posting this series on helping recent college grads become adults. One thing I have been passionate about my whole life is cleaning. I have always felt that when things are in order, my brain works better. I also just like to feel clean physically and mentally. And finally, only one of the two homes (parents divorced) I grew up in was ready for guests at any time. I always want our home to be clean and open for company and our daughter's future friends. 

Okay, enough about why I love cleanliness. I'm always looking for great non-super chemical ways to clean and decided to take to Pinterest. I found some unique ways to clean specific things around our home. I was about to hire someone to clean my oven, blinds, glass light fixtures, my shower, freshen our mattress (because a new baby can mean all kinds of surprises!), and clean the faucets and sinks around here. I thought to myself, certainly I can find something and do this myself!

Here's what I found and you can see if it worked or not. I'll rate these as spotless or thoughtless. Spotless meaning it worked and I'll do it again. Thoughtless meaning, do people really use these? I won't use it again. It's just a theory more than a practical help. 

DRYER SHEETS TO CLEAN LIGHT FIXTURES

I read that using dryer sheets on glass light fixtures would clean all the dust off of the glass. So I set out to try it. Now you have to rub on the glass with the dryer sheet and also be gentle on the glass at the same time. We have frosted fixtures which in my opinion are harder to clean. See the pictures below:


Rating: Spotless! It worked. Do this and vacuum  up all the little dust after. When the dust comes off it looks like eraser shavings. But I'm really happy with the outcome. Not to mention, I always have dryer sheets until the cows come home so it's no extra cost. 

LEMONS TO POLISH METAL FIXTURES 

For my next project, I read that using lemons and cutting them in half, then rubbing them on the faucets and sinks that are metal (faux stainless) would make them sparkle clean! So I did just that using only two lemons. We have two bathrooms and our kitchen with sinks and faucets. That means three bathroom faucets, two shower heads, two shower knobs for water, and then our double kitchen sinks. I might add, I bought rubber gloves to start using since I had a baby and don't want any cleaning type things on my hands. Just incase. Trust me with lemons you'll want to use these. If you didn't think you had a cut, let the lemon find it for you. ;) See the pictures below:




Rating: Somewhere between spotless and thoughtless. You can tell it made a difference but didn't take away the hard water stains totally. Worked better on the sinks than the faucets. The thoughtless part is, who really goes around using lemons on their stuff to see if it'll clean? (Outside the kitchen that is). To give credit to those who did try this, the citrus smell all around is delightful. 

LEMONS TO FRESHEN THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL

Last thing I did was use the lemons I had scrubbed with to clean my garbage disposal in the sink. Let's be real. Those can be smelly and it's so unsafe to put your hand down in there for any reason. So I cut up all the lemons I used (2) and put them in my disposal. I cut them into about nickel size pieces. Then I ran some water and turned on the disposal. I didn't take any pictures here but can you smell the lemony fresh as we talk about this?

Rating: SPOTLESS. I did this at the beginning of the week and have been drafting my post here. My disposal has not smelled at all! Some people will use lemons and put them in ice trays with vinegar too I read. I don't love the smell of vinegar so I opted not to but I could see it working too. 

RECAP

I spent $1.64 (on lemons) and already had dryer sheets $0. I also purchased rubber cleaning gloves. $2. 


Now I have spotless light fixtures, improved faucets and sinks, and a fresh disposal. What hacks do you use or have you tried? I have a lot more to try on my list. I'll be conquering blinds (UGH), my oven, my shower, and mattress in the coming weeks. Stay clean my friends. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pay Attention to Subtle Physical Reactions

Ever clench your fists in anger? Chuckle out loud when reading a joke? Sigh when thinking about something disappointing? Often, we don't do these things intentionally. These are subconscious reactions to things around us. Think about it. It would be absurd to think to yourself, "I thought that was funny, so I am purposefully going to laugh out loud." After all, we don't laugh out loud at 100% of the things we think are funny. (You all who use the LOL acronym in your text messages know this well!)
Post a Comment
Read more

Balancing a Roadmap with Spontaneity

Think about the last family vacation you planned. It's exciting to think about what your family and friends might do and the places you'll travel. But there's quite a few factors that play a role in planning a vacation. Things like... Where are we going? Who all is going? How many days will we be gone? How much are we willing to spend? What form of travel will we be taking? And so on. You get the picture. This isn't a bad thing to do at all. Rarely will you find people that step out the door on a vacation with zero plan in mind. But how many people follow their very precise plans once the vacation takes place? Oftentimes, things change at the very last minute. Folks on a road trip might pass a billboard for something cool they had no idea existed. Many people will change those plans last minute and be happy they did so. Others will stick to their original plan and likely end up regretting doing so, always wondering what it would have been like to venture of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: "The Dip" by Seth Godin

If you think you've seen this book before, you're probably not mistaken. It's not a new book at all. It came out in 2007, and the first time I read this book was actually back in 2011. For personal reasons, I chose to pick it back up, and I'll talk about that in a separate post. Having been five years since my last read, I'm glad I dug this back up. It's a pretty teeny book, as you can see in the image below. A person can definitely breeze through the entire book in an hour or two. Anyway, this is a book review! How does this book hold up in the nine years since it's initial release? Let's get into it.
Post a Comment
Read more

Parkinson's Law's Relevance to Business

A few posts back, I noted that we should focus on big things because we become preoccupied with the details of the goals we set for ourselves. So if you set the goal to lose 20 pounds over 6 months, you'll adopt strategies to make that goal a reality when if you set a goal to lost 100 pounds over 6 months, you'll adopt strategies to make that goal a reality. The time doesn't change, nor does the mentality. I'm currently reading through Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck  and learned about a concept called Parkinson's Law. Parkinson's Law states the following: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Post a Comment
Read more

Adulting 101: What's in My Work Backpack

Hey there folks. You know that I manage another blog, Engedi Artistry, and when I conceived this post, I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted it here or on that blog. I ended up putting it over there, but I still think it's a great post for the Adulting 101 series. Instead of duplicating the post over here, I'm doing something kind of lazy and just linking this post to that one. I know, I know, this is uncharacteristic of me, but I need a break! Hope you all have a great weekend. LINK: What's in My Work Backpack
Post a Comment
Read more