Cleaning tip that will BLOW YOUR MIND

I've obviously been enjoying summer and slacking off. Well, today I looked at the grungy, textured floor of my bathtub and decided it was time to do a serious scrubdown.  Now, those who know me I keep a pretty clean house, so no, it wasn't Hoarders bad, but I'd thrown some bleach in there a week or two ago trying to get the bright white color back and it still was a little, er, greyish. 

So I took something I'd picked up in the store awhile back, it was an impulse buy, really...

Zep Degreaser  $4.99 on Amazon

I sprayed it on the bathroom floor, waited about 3-5 minute and then scrubbed with some elbow grease and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (FYI, it's melamine foam, also available on Amazon or possibly at your local hardware store-it's a soundproofing insulation material)

Holy Moly. It cleaned so well that it's sparkling white, as in just purchased white. So then I tried it on the kiddos bathroom, which generally doesn't get gross, but had some blue paint in the bottom from when I cleaned out the roller pan from painting the nursery, oh, 8 years ago and it's been there ever since. Came RIGHT OFF. I don't know what's in this stuff, and frankly I don't want to know, but the stuff works.

Then I got excited (so sue me, this stuff gets me going!)  and tried it on the scaly stuff that was in my drip pan of my fridge ice dispenser that the dishwasher didn't touch and then tried the Zep + Eraser on some stuff that had gotten baked on to my creamic stove top that I'd pretty much given on (probably plastic, paint, who knows, the stuff was ON, no other cleaner had touched it.  Guess what? It got it off.

I can't wait to find something dirty now, maybe my rubber garbage disposal thingy could use a few squirts of this stuff.

P.S. Grandma, I promise I'll be back to posting cute stuff about the kids very soon :)

Edit to add results in the kitchen:

Another note, I'm guessing orange oil is in the product because it has a nice smell and my hands are kind of soft after using it :)  also good for cuticles... also, I do mean elbow grease. The bathtub used up about 3/4 of an eraser.

So I tried to think of the worst (best?) test for this new cleaning method.  I came up with my microwave and oven door. The verdict: While they are not sparkling new, they look 90% better than they did, even after I tried vinegar and baking soda, etc.  Note: the method described above (3-5 minutes, then scrub with eraser) still worked the best. I tried respraying and adding hot vinegar and it did not make any difference. I also tried cleaning the fishtank and waiting longer and it didn't make a difference on the last few spot.  (BTW, my fav thing to do with the Eraser is clean the fishtank. NO scrubbing green gunk anymore, takes 5 minutes to clean it entirely, took me 30 minutes when I used to scrub the sides.  I designate one eraser just for this job as the green stuff is pretty gross (algae).

Stand in awe of it's job on the toughest thing I could think of.... Microwave before:

It's "clean", but, it's dingy, right?

Look at the after, you can see the reflection of me taking the picture it's so freakin' shiny!  The top and sides did great with the treatment. I had a little more trouble with the back, but it still looks great!

A word of caution on the oven door... it does say not to use it on glass, but also says it can be used on appliances.  So that's my warning. The glass turned out similarily as the microwave. Way better than it was. Makes me want to open up the door and clean the inside of the window :) But I'm kind of sick like that....

ETA 8/21 My plastic laundry tub, the one I installed instead of the little bathroom sink that was there when we moved in has taken a beating. Paint, grungy. It was embarassing (hence no "before" picture) when we'd have people over, it was just as convenient to let people go to the 1/2 bath in the laundry as to go upstairs, but I didn't want to, even if it meant having to clean the kids' tub. No more, the white plastic laundry tub is SPARKLING after this treatment! :)

Valerie loves Toopy

& Binoo! (A cartoon show from Canada)

I think Carter's having fun!

What do you think?

Pictures of Carter in Canada

I'm still trying to get the videos working, but here's some pics of Carter from Ontario where he's spending the month...

Desk 2

So I have this desk in my office that was a found item in the basement of my old house, much like this desk that I redid two months ago. Well I'd already redone this one once by sanding off all the icky white/yellow paint and clear staining it and throwing the pulls back on.  That was 8 years ago. Since then the kids have drawn on it and the pulls have gotten even ickier than they started.  Also in the meantime, my grandparents downsized and my grandmother pulled off her cabinet pulls and gave them to me.. oh... about 5 years ago. 

Well, I saw this post on pinterest about a decoupaged fabric desk and decided I'd like to try the look on my own desk with the cabinet pulls I had. 

Here's what the desk looked like before:

it's ok, but kind of blah.

So I took the little (and I do mean little) bit of brown paint I had left from the office, the other desk and the door and what I spilled on the grass while painting the door last week (I actually ran to get a sample of a very similar, but not the exact same paint to do the underside and the sides of the desk) and I painted the top, the front (not the drawers) sides and underside of the desk.

Then I drilled holes in the center of the old holes for the drawer pulls since I'm going from two screw pulls to one screw pulls.  I found through trial and error the key is to do it before putting fabric on and from the outside to inside and to do it fast.  I was going to Mod Podge paper on to the drawers, but then remembered this awesome adhesive fabric I got an sale awhile ago which was blue and brown like my office (there's also a pink and brown stack) from Die Cuts with a View...

I cut it just slightly larger than my drawer fronts and applied it.  It was so easy to work with. Went on smoothly, cut easily, I smoothed out any bubbles and it was repositionable if I got it wrong the first try. Very easy to work with. I still need to put some no-fray stuff on the edges, but I didnt' even bother mod podging (though I may if the kids decide they need to start drawing on it or if it starts peeling off so it will be more durable).  I then used an exacto knife to poke a hole where my new pulls would go and put the pulls in (I did not bother doing anything to the old holes from the old pulls-I'm lazy like that).  I then went back and painted the tops of the drawer fronts because it looked funny looking down and seeing the old paint. 

I LOVE how it turned out and how easy it was. Total time was probably 30-60 minutes?

I used the last drawer pull from the other desk that I had available to put it in the center, which I painted brown because my fabric paper was only 12x12, had I used actual fabric like my inspiration I could have done the middle one as well.  I may change it out to another glass pull like the others, I haven't decided yet.

Easy curtain tiebacks

We have no A/C, it gets hot in here! I needed a way to keep the curtains in V's room open so the air can blow in.

I whipped these up in about 2 minutes:

All it is is a piece of ribbon (maybe 18 inches each?) I tied them tightly to some little white plastic circle rings (they are cheap and multi-packed at the fabric or hardware store) then I used a cigarette lighter to seal the ends of the ribbon so they wouldn't fray. I then put a little white screw hook into the wall and voila! Curtain tiebacks!

My Mom's birthday & I take on yet another project that is too big...

My mom's birthday was yesterday, so she and my dad decided to bring over fresh crab they'd caught literally the day before by diving for it, and my dad installed two new outlets in my garage (including adding them to my fusebox) to decrease the chances of Valerie unplugging my freezer again, not to mention the fact that the 1 outlet our  garage started with  is just  stupid. Then my mom proceeded to wash all the dishes up for me.  Seriously, you'd think it was my birthday!

Today we slept until 9am! But made up for lost time quickly. I made a loaf of white bread and tried hot dog buns (still need some help with shape, but they made nice breadsticks!)  I also installed two retractable solar clothes dryers (clotheslines) in my no often used side yard, did laundry and hung it out to dry as well as mow the front and back lawn. All before noon!

Then a trip to one of my new favorite stores Restore where I dropped off the old light fixtures from the kids' rooms (replaced those last week) and looked for doors.... you see my office closet door (bifold) fell off the track and my sweet husband went to put it back up for me. He succeeded, but in the process dropped the door into my office door and busted a hole in it since the doors are cheapo contractor grade hollow doors in our house. 

I had gotten the idea to get a charming old door with some character and maybe a window and I'd lovingly sand it down , possibly paint it and install it into my office. Yeah, if you know me, you know where this is going right? Erin takes on another project she thinks she can handle and her husband (or father as the case is sometimes) has to help her finish it because she does something stupid/wrong/too difficult and veers off course. Best intentions, I suppose.

Restore has about 3 aisles of doors, you go to the section (interior, with glass, exterior, 4 panel, etc.) and on masking tape on the side is the price of the door as well as the measurements. I found a matching measurement door that looked alright, it was $45.  A hollow door is about $22 at the home improvement store a new "slab" door (solid) is about $150.  Yes, I could have gotten a new, french primed door, but whatever....

I removed some old hardware and tried to sand this puppy, did not work.  So I put on two layers of paint on each side (adding to the probably 7 layers already on it.  I also noticed a small crack in the upper corner of the window.

I also found the beautiful door knobs that are from Australia, were barely used and I got them for $25 pretty good considering I found them online for about $65.  However, this was the part I also messed up, I couldn't figure out how to screw it onto the door and completely took it apart trying to figure it out, including dropping some pieces. So Paul came home from work and we played a game of Try to Figure out How the Knob goes back together.  Paul eventually won and we got the sucker on.  However, it's still pretty stiff and the lock won't work (it did before I messed it up).

After installing it (I had to chisel since of course the hinges were in the wrong spots and I over chiseled and we had to add some cardboard.  I cut out some letters from repositional vinyl and finished it off...

 From inside my office

Close up of super cool knob

So if I had to do it again, I'd probably just head down to Home Depot and get one of these for $92.

But it's a nice door (heavy) and I did it myself and kept out of trouble for an afternoon. I have a feeling my husband is done with my projects for awhile!