Thursday, January 31, 2013

New House Tour–The Clean Part

Did you miss the New House Tour – The Gross Part? Click here to see all the dirt! Smile

So as you remember, our carpets were gross all around this new house. How did I get them clean?

I used a spot cleaner of Nature Bright and Basic H2.DSC08000_thumb
Use 8oz of warm water. Mix in 1/2 tsp Nature Bright and allow to dissolve. Mix in 1/4 tsp Basic H2, then pour into spray bottle.

I used this mixture on all the spots on the carpet. I borrowed a friend’s carpet cleaner and shampooed all the carpet. Before going over it with the carpet cleaner I would spray the spots in that room then shampoo. I also used about 1/4 tsp Basic H2 in the carpet cleaner instead of the carpet shampoo. It worked great and no nasty crunch or chemical residue.
Living Room Carpet After_thumb[1]

The stairs were a pain to shampoo, but the end result was totally worth it!
Stairs Before and After1

Andrew’s room cleaned up well with some dusting, vacuuming, and a good carpet shampooing.
Andrews Room Before and After

The kitchen floor was glowing after a good mopping. Again, I used Basic H2. I put about a teaspoon in a bucket of water and mopped with a rag on my hands and knees. To maintain the clean I use a ProMist Microfiber mop with 1/4 tsp Basic H2 and water in the spray bottle.
Kitchen Floor After

The oven was a challenge, but with Basic H2 Degreaser and Scour Off, it is looking like new these days.
Before:
Oven Before
After:
Oven After

I spent a long time scraping up the dried detergent in the laundry room and eventually it cleaned up well. However it did stain the vinyl. Not a big deal since the washer and dryer cover it though.
Before:
Laundry Room Before
After:
Laundry Room After

The boys bathroom took a ton of time to clean, but was so much better.

Here’s a very blurry picture of me that Andrew took when I started to clean bathrooms. haha. The gloves and mask weren’t to protect me from chemicals, as you know I use all natural non-toxic cleaners. No the gloves were to protect me from the pure DISGUSTING-NESS I had to clean (aka toilets) and the mask was to prevent me from throwing up! lol
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I had to get one of those drain cleaning tools (Found mine at Lowe’s). These work so great, I got all the hair, push pins, etc out of the drains. yeah this almost made me lose my cookies too. yuck to cleaning someone else’s hair out of the sink!

The drawers cleaned up great with a little help from Basic H2 degreaser and Scour Off. It was some kind of sticky mess so the degreaser broke it down and the Scour Off scrubbed it away.
Boys Bathroom Drawers Before and After

The toilet took time. I replaced the seat with our own seat that has the built in child’s seat. For the bowl of the toilet I used Basic G to sanitize everything, actually I think I just went in and sprayed everything, let it sit for 5 minutes, then came back ready to conquer! lol

After a cleaning, I put two scoops of Nature Bright in the bowl and let that soak a while. Lastly I got in there with Scour Off, gloves, and a disposable sponge and scrubbed like mad. I stopped at this point. I didn’t get it all off, but I know it’s not dirty just some rust/sediment build up so I’m fine with that for now.

**Update: I DID get it off, click HERE to see how**
Toilet process

After more cleaning I finally got the bathroom to sparkle! Open-mouthed smile
Boys Bathroom before and after2

And here it is after the after. I have put towel bars up and gotten a second green rug since this picture, but pretty much it looks like this now. SOOOOOO much better!!
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The Master bathroom is looking so much better now.
Master Bathroom After

And I think that about wraps it up. It took a long time, but I’m so grateful I had the Get Clean line to clean. I don't even want to imagine what kind of toll it would have taken on my body had I used chemical cleaners! Yuck. Instead I used the non-toxic cleaning power of Shaklee to get this house in tip top shape.

Now to finish unpacking (almost there), paint (ha!), and decorate. So expect more pictures soon as I get around to more and more things.

Hope you’re having a fabulous day!!

Monday, January 28, 2013

New Home Tour–The Gross Part

UPDATE: Here's the AFTER, all cleaned and pretty!

I mentioned a while back that we moved to a new house. Well it wasn’t too pretty when we moved in, but it sure has come a long way. Today I’ll take you on a tour of the grossness of our house and later show you how well it’s cleaned up since.



First I had to start by clearing out all the JUNK that the previous owner left. That alone took several hours and several trash bags. He left a box full of books, empty or nearly empty bottles of shampoo, deodorant, etc., random stuff in the cupboards, tons of stuff in the garage including a very large projection screen tv.

Here is the living room, most of the carpet in the house was really dirty with black spots all over the place. I don’t think the previous owner ever took their shoes off in the house (or vacuumed – ever)

Living Room Carpet Before

The kitchen floor was yucky with mysterious sticky spots all over the floor.
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Kitchen Floor Before

The oven was nasty. He must have fried a lot of stuff because there was grease all over, including down the sides. I had to pull the oven out and scrape all this off.
Oven Before


We have 3 bathrooms in the new house, all of which were gross. Two of the toilets had leaky flappers and were running water constantly. All of the toilets were disgusting!

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Ah yes, the laundry room. The previous owner left a washer – and half a bottle of detergent half dried on the floor. That was a lovely mess to clean.
Laundry Room Before


Most of the light switches were discolored and gross.
Light Switches Before

And did I mention I had my boys with me the whole time I was cleaning the house…they were good sports, but I mostly had to leave Ben in the playpen because it was dirty. Anytime I let him crawl around his knees and hands would turn black…blech
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The dining room wasn’t bad at all. just a little bit dirty in the path to the kitchen.
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Those stairs though, they were gross. Black spots all the way up.
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At the top of the stairs there’s a large landing that we’re using for a playroom. This wasn’t too bad either, probably not used much.
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The boys rooms were gross. Andrew’s room must have had a huge dresser here. The carpet under it was the only part that was clean. haha
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Poor Ben’s room was really bad. The carpet was dirty, there were stickers on the walls, and then this mysterious spot on the wall. I think it may have been egg!?! I was cleaning on top of the kitchen cupboards and found eggshells up there so I thought maybe someone had an egg fight? Not sure.
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Then there was the boys’ bathroom. When I was cleaning I saved that for last because it was the WORST. The sinks were clogged with tons of hair and push pins!


Since they were backed up, the sinks were nasty.
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No words…*shiver*
Boys Bathroom Toilet Before
The toilets were all so nasty I actually asked my husband if we could just replace them all. haha. He said no, it wasn't in the budget. so I sucked it up and cleaned them.

The bathtub was black and had black spots all over the wall.
DSC07844DSC07845

The master bedroom is nice and big. For the most part it was alright. There was a desk in the corner so you can see the black spot on the wall from putting feet/shoes against it.
And have you noticed a trend? Not a single spot of paint on any of the walls! That was nice for having a fresh start, but pretty costly – and we’re still not even done yet!
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The Master bath is roomy too
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Another yucky shower; soap scum all over the place, mildew starting to form, black floor, dried shampoo or something.
Master Bathroom Shower Before

I’ve spared you from the full grossness of the toilets before. Even the picture of the boys’ toilet is after a little cleaning. Oh boy, you would have lost your lunch, I almost did cleaning them
DSC07862
So are you curious how it all cleaned up?

You’ll just have to wait for the next installment later this week Open-mouthed smile 

Be sure to follow me, so you don't miss it!

UPDATE: Here's the AFTER, all cleaned and pretty!

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