November 25, 2012

In the midst of a cleaning and organizing frenzy, I present to you my newest favorite (old) products

I have sorta been a domestic goddess lately.  Seriously. (Yeah, I don't know what's gotten into me either!)

As I am typing this, I have been off work since Wednesday - and I have three more days before I go back to work.  Needless to say, I've had to find something to do and so I have turned to housekeeping.  It's funny, usually when I come across an area of the house that needs to be addressed, I make a mental note to get to it on the next weekend (which never seems to actually happen since I totally get sidetracked by something else that needs my attention immediately) - but now that I've got all this spare time, I am able to just dive right in and I have.....and I have the aching back to prove it.

It's actually kind of refreshing.  Back when Man-Child was here, housekeeping was near impossible.  As soon as it was clean or organized, he'd come home and chaos would immediately ensue. (Want to hear something funny?  MC claims HE is the neatest between him and his roommate! Hahahahaha!  Somehow I find that hard to believe, but he swears it's true.) Hubby actually isn't so bad, except for his habit of hiding clutter, so usually when everything is clean and where it needs to be it stays there, more or less.

So far I have organized my bathroom (no mean feat considering that nothing has really been properly organized in there since we moved in four years ago when we just dumped the boxes straight into the cabinets and drawers); my dresser (ditto with the dumping four years ago), have given the bedroom a MAJOR cleaning from top to bottom, have cleaned out the fridge and organized the pantry (this was huge project, since it involved moving all of this; most of which had migrated to my countertops from the dining room table! and making room in the pantry for it all, complete with baskets of his favorites, so he can just remove the basket and put it back without just throwing stuff back in the pantry willy-nilly).

In between the organizing and cleaning frenzy I have also been dealing with laundry.  The never ending laundry.  Throwing Thanksgiving into the mix only added to the laundry; what with Man Child bringing home EVERY. SINGLE. PIECE of clothing he owns to be washed, there was also the linens that needed to be dealt with.

We discovered just a few hours before our Thanksgiving guests were to arrive that some of our favorite tablecloths had old stains that had gone unnoticed last time they were washed and dried.  Lovely.  Needless to say, we used different tablecloths for Thanksgiving dinner.

After the festivities, I turned my attention to the old stains.  Certain that they would NEVER come out. I mean, who knows how long these stains had been there?  Who knew what caused the stains?  And I knew that those stains had been set by the dryer a year ago or so, since that was the last time we'd used those particular linens.

Enter my two new favorite (old) products.


Yup.  Old fashioned hydrogen peroxide and washing soda.

Let me tell you - this stuff kicks butt!  Seriously.  I have never seen a commercial "stain removal" product - including bleach - work as well as this; particularly on old, set in stains.  After soaking all the tablecloths in this mixture (even the multi-colored tablecloth) for a few hours in hot water a couple of times and then washing (along with a dash of each, in addition to the detergent) the cloths are stain-free.  AND the multicolored tablecloth shows no signs of fading or bleaching!  Color me impressed.  My question? How did I NOT know about this back when I was dealing with baby stains, toddler stains, kid stains and football stains?  Because I'm here to tell you, Spray 'n Wash (my mother's favorite go-to laundry aid) did NOT help with the majority of those stains....much less stains of this caliber.

Upon doing further "research" (okay, okay!  Hours spent browsing Pinterest.....), I have discovered many, many uses for these two super products and I can now state unequivocally that these two items will be staples in my house for years to come. 

Now you really must excuse me, I need to go reorganize Hubby's closet, and the mudroom, and something really needs to be done about that hall closet.....OH, and somehow I need to find the time to rearrange the garage....if only to be able to access the Christmas decorations; otherwise we will have to decorate the ficus and have Christmas morning in the dining room.  And nobody wants that.  I know because I already asked.  Something tells me that the heating pad is about to become my new best friend. 



*This is NOT a sponsored post - I just wanted to share my great new discovery!  

9 comments:

  1. I wish I had another 3 days off so I could continue on my cleaning spree too! Your house is going to be spotless by the time Christmas break comes around- just in time for M.C. to return home for a few weeks. You better warn him now. :)

    I use Borax in my laundry and I love it just as much as you love the washing soda. I put a scoop into every load and my laundry looks and smells so much cleaner. And my whites are soooo white! For other cleaning I have found that vinegar and Dawn dish soap are miracle workers. So easy and so cheap and I am always impressed by the results. And I put Dawn on old stains on clothes and it will wash set-in stains out really well. LOVE Dawn!

    I'm jealous of your clean home, you go girl!

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  2. I have been on a serious cleaning frenzy lately too! Did you know heating 1 cup of water in the microwave for a few minutes makes it SO much easier to clean? I also use a hint of vinegar when mopping my floors...nice and shiny! Old school cleaning strategies DO come in handy!

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  3. I buy peroxide in the large size and use it on everything! I keep it in a spray bottle. Works great on blood.

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  4. I will use these tips (yours and your commenters) as soon as I get home! What a great thing to discover! I use Simple Green on stains, but I think this will work much better on those stubborn ones. Thanks, Gigi, I'm in your debt! :-)

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  5. Anything called "Super Washing Soda" is all right in my book!

    Pearl

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  6. I need to keep these tips in mind. I hate stains and tend to get a lot of them.

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  7. Oh how I wish I could find the energy to give this house the deep clean it so needs!! Maybe when my littles go off to University:)

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  8. Always gotta have the baking soda and peroxide :)

    Great blog btw!

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  9. So now I'm really happy AND in a panic - because those tablecloths from last Christmas? Yeah still in the bag to go to the cleaners - with stains which are first going to be magically treated by your discovery.

    And when are you coming over to bring your frenzy to my place? I will never get anything done. Had 4 days off at Thanksgiving with all those similar cleaning chores on the list. Instead we varnished the boat and went to the beach. OOPS!

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