Window cleaner (store bought or homemade from water, vinegar, and isopropyl alcohol) in a spray bottle

bucket

Murphy’s oil soap or other wood cleaner

sponge

cleaning cloths (I use diapers)

old toothbrush

squeegee (optional)

These are the instructions for cleaning the insides of windows. If you have the kind of windows that let you clean the outside from inside the house, these instructions will work for you.

First, pull up blinds and move curtains out of the way. (You can wash these at the same time if you have the energy and know how to do it.) Use the sponge and soapy water to wash the wood around the windows. (Squeeze the sponge out well so water won’t leak down on the walls.) Use the toothbrush where needed. Clean the sill as well.

Then, spray the window cleaner on one pane at a time. Use one cloth to wash the window, then use the drier cloth to get up all of the moisture. Windows won’t streak if you keep polishing until they’re dry. Work on one pane at a time, spraying, wiping, and drying.

If you’re washing the outside of the windows from the inside, do all of the insides before starting on the outside.

Tools:

Dish soap

Dish cloth

spray bottle with diluted cleaner

old toothbrush

baking soda

vinegar

bleach

towel

I find that the most logical time to clean the kitchen sink is after dinner, after I have loaded the dishwasher. We probably won’t use the sink again after dinner, so that is a logical time. It is so nice to wake up to a nice clean sink each morning!

If there are dishes in your sink, the first thing you need to do is wash them or put them in the dishwasher. NEVER stash dirty dishes in the oven! Never stash them in a bin under your sink! You’re reading this page for a reason… and those tactics DON’T work for messies! You have to keep your dishes clean. That means you HAVE to wash the dishes at least once a day. If you have many dirty dishes, then get them washed and put away before working on shining the sink. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

OK, now I’m assuming that all of your dirty dishes have been taken care of properly. Ah, if you stashed them, go back and wash them! Trust me, you will feel GREAT without that weighing on your conscience!

Remove everything that hangs out by the faucet. You’ll need to find new homes for almost all of this stuff. I’ll tell you what can stay there when we’re done.

Spray the whole sink with the spray cleaner. Spray the faucet, the knobs, the base, the whole sink. Use the wet dishcloth to scrub everywhere, including the faucet and knobs. Use the toothbrush to scrub all around where the faucet meets the sink. If you’ve never done this before, it will be disgusting. Use the dishcloth to wipe away the yucky stuff. Rinse well.

This step is optional. I like to use baking soda and vinegar to keep my drains open. I haven’t had a clog since we’ve been here (19 months) so it seems to work. It’s better for the environment and for the pipes than caustic chemicals. It’s also cheap… and fun to watch! I dump some baking soda, about a fourth of a cup, into each drain. Then I pour about a half a cup of plain white vinegar into each drain. Enjoy watching it fizz! When it stops fizzing, give it another two minutes or so, and then run hot water down the drain for a few moments.

On the days that you don’t do the baking soda and vinegar, you should sanitize your drain. This should be done every other day at least. Make a solution of about a teaspon (a sploosh) of bleach and about a liter (quart) of water. Then, pour the solution down the drain! (Make sure you pour some into your garbage disposal, too, if you have one.)

Now, dry out the sink with your towel, paying special attention to the faucet. You may put back the dish soap, the handsoap, and a tube of handcream. Nothing else should be by the sink. Put the dishcloth and towel into the laundry and set out a clean dishcloth and towel, and you are done!

Just because you have a pantry doesn’t mean you have to stuff it full of food. You don’t HAVE to go to Sam’s Club or Costco every week just to fill the shelves. And you don’t have to buy stuff just because it’s on sale. Sometimes, buying in bulk can be a bigger inconvenience than the savings are worth.

Before you buy one more thing to put in your pantry, inventory what you have. Are there certain foods that you never seem to use? At one time, we had several cans of bamboo shoots and water chestnuts. We enjoy making Oriental food, but we don’t like those ingredients. We just kept buying them because the recipe called for them… but then we wouldn’t use them. Do you have more than two bags of flour or sugar? You probably don’t need to keep more than two bags of flour or sugar on hand, unless you run a bakery or a day care center. Do you have a kind of canned vegetable that always gets passed over at dinner time in favor of another? Make a note of that and don’t get those any more. Uneaten vegetables aren’t good for anyone.

Set aside the canned goods that you don’t and won’t use. Wipe them off (since I’m sure they’re dusty) and save them for the next post office or Boy Scout food drive. Or take them to your town’s food closet. Someone will appreciate your beets and water chestnuts.

To avoid making the same mistakes again, try planning your menus a week or a month ahead. This will especially help you if you live payday to payday, because it will help ensure you have food for each meal in the coming month. (Set aside some cash for milk and bread, maybe keep it in an envelope taped to your pantry door.)

You have two options for storing the remaining food. You can store food in categories, all vegetables together, all fruits together, all soups together, or you can store them with other items you use with them… such as flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, and chocolate chips together. Try one method, and if you don’t like it, try the other. I don’t have a pantry, but I store my food together as I would use it (tomatoes and canned beans for chili together on the same shelf is one example that comes to mind.)

You need a way to store the small packets of gravy and taco and chili seasoning. I keep mine in a drawer, but you can also use a large recipe card box or a small basket. Keep a different basket for Jell-o boxes and Kool-Aid packets.

Set aside a shelf for your children’s snacks. You can give each child a dish-pan to store snacks for the coming week. Label the dish-pans and put them on a shelf within your children’s reach (unless they would do better if you got them their snacks.) This way, they can grab their own snacks for school lunches or after school. You can ration snacks one week at a time for your kids.

Your pantry is not just for food. You can store appliances you don’t use very often. You can also keep some of your emergency supplies there… a flashlight, some candles, batteries, some gallon jugs of water, and other emergency supplies. You can also use your pantry to store extra dinner dishes and glasses… the ones you would use for a party or get-together, but don’t need for day-to-day meals.

If your pantry starts to get cluttered, yet you can’t find any food in there, it’s time to inventory your food again. Don’t buy the foods that just languish on your pantry shelves. No matter how many times you think you should add beets to your diet, if you won’t eat them, it’s a waste of money and space. Make sure you store what you do have in a way that makes everything easy to find.

If you have any pantry tips, use the form to the right to email me.

]]> http://mymessyhouse.org/cleaning-101/pantry/feed/ 5 http://mymessyhouse.org/cleaning-101/laundry/ http://mymessyhouse.org/cleaning-101/laundry/#comments Sun, 10 Nov 2002 03:44:42 +0000 Jenne http://mymessyhouse.org/?p=16 Laundry is a necessary evil. It seems like it can be a problem for so many people for so many different reasons. But there are reasons to love doing laundry. You can’t beat the smell of freshly washed clothes, or the feeling of fluffy towels hot out of the dryer.

Tools:

Washer

Dryer (or clothesline or drying rack)

Laundry detergent (chose one that smells good and gets things clean. You might have to experiment, but once you find one you like, stick with it. Bargain detergents end up being too expensive because they don’t work as well. Watch for sales on your brand. Powder and liquid are equally good, but you have to be a little more careful with powder and liquid is more expensive)

Pretreater (liquid detergent works. So does Simple Green and Spray and Wash)

Chlorine bleach

Non-chlorine bleach

Fabric softener liquid or sheets. I recommend sheets if your washer doesn’t have an automatic dispenser. I recommend liquid if you’re line-drying.)

Clothespins (if you’re line-drying) Springtype wooden or plastic are easier to use.

A cup. I use a coffee cup that is dedicated to laundry.

When you first start, you need to read the labels of all of your clothes. They’ll tell you how to wash your clothes, what temperature to wash them in, how to dry them, how to iron them, all the important details. When in doubt, use cold water and line dry, except for sweaters, which should dry flat.

Sort your laundry first by color. I sort into three piles… whites, mediums, and darks. T-shirts and other white items than can’t be washed in hot with bleach go into the medium pile. Then I separate out the delicate clothes like silk. I don’t wear delicates, so this doesn’t happen very often. When I shop for clothes, I always buy clothes than can be machine washed and dried. I have a few unmentionables that require special handling, but not many.

Make sure socks are turned outside out. They won’t get clean if the dirty part is on the inside. Jeans can be turned inside out, especially if you plan to line-dry them outside.

You should not wash underwear and kitchen stuff together. It might be necessary if you don’t have enough kitchen stuff for a separate load, but make sure you use bleach. Always wash diapers (used for baby) separately. Diapers used for cleaning can go into the regular white laundry.

To wash a load of whites (READ THE LABELS. MAKE SURE THEY CAN BE WASHED IN HOT WITH BLEACH), first start the washer filling with hot water. Add a scoop of detergent and a cup of bleach and let the detergent dissolve. Once the washer is about half full and the detergent is dissolved, you can start adding the clothes. Once you have added the clothes, add fabric softener to your dispenser. If you don’t have a dispenser, and you’re line drying, you’ll have to come back in about 15 minutes to add fabric softener.

Close the lid. The washer won’t spin with the lid open.

In 15 minutes, check the cycle. If the rinse cycle has started and the washer is about half full of rinse water, add the fabric softener. Dilute the softener in your cup before adding it and be careful not to let the softener touch any fabric. Undiluted fabric softener stains.

When the laundry is done, take it out and shake it out (this helps get rid of wrinkles), then hang to dry or put in the dryer.

If you’re hanging your laundry, socks and undies can be in the sun, which gives a natural bleaching effect, while darker clothes should be in the shade.

Hang sweatshirts (and t-shirts) by the bottom to avoid clothespin marks on your shoulders. Pin up the arms to keep them from stretching out. Hang jeans inside out to keep them from fading.

If you’re machine drying, clean out the lint filter before starting the dryer. This is essential to do every single time. (You should also check the exhaust hose for lint buildup at least once a week. This is a fire hazard and also makes it take longer to dry the clothes.)

Take the clothes out as soon as they’re dry and while they’re still hot. Fold or hang them right away to avoid wrinkles.

Repeat the process with your mediums (I wash these in warm with non-chlorine bleach) and your darks (unless they’re filthy, I don’t use non-chlorine bleach on them at all.) Never use chlorine bleach on mediums or darks.

If clothes are muddy, run them through a rinse cycle before washing. If clothes are stained, spray them with pretreater before washing.

Don’t use fabric softener on bath towels. It reduces absorbency. You can use a cup of white vinegar in the rinse to make them fluffy.

Some experts recommend watching the order that you wash clothes. They say if you are using public facilities, you should start your laundry with a load of hot whites to kill any germs left from other people, while if you are washing laundry in your own home, you should end with a load of hot whites to kill the germs left from this session. It’s up to you.

dirty dishes

liquid dish soap

dish cloth (I like these better than sponges because they can be thrown into the laundry every day. Sponges collect bacteria.)

sponge on a stick (for glasses. You can buy these in the cleaning supplies aisle.)

plastic scrubbie (get one that is safe for Teflon)

dishpan and dishrack

or dishwasher and dishwasher soap

spray bottle with diluted cleaner such as Pine Sol

If you have a dishwasher, unload it and put away the clean dishes. If you don’t have a dishwasher, empty out your dishrack.

If you have a dishwasher, load it with dirty dishes (rinse first) and then run it.

If you do not have a dishwasher, fill one side of the sink with hot, soapy water. (Just a squirt will do.) If you have only a single sink, fill the dishpan with hot water to rinse the dishes.

Start with glasses and cups. These are usually the least dirty of the dishes. (Start with the least dirty of the dishes.) Use the sponge on a stick to clean the inside of the glasses. Do NOT stick your hand into a glass glass… I have a large scar on my thumb from when a glass broke while I was washing it.

Rinse the glasses and cups in the rinse water in the dishpan OR under hot, running water in the other side of your double sink. Running water is better and cleaner. I usually rinse a batch of dishes at a time. Seems to save water.

Now wash plates and bowls, using the dishcloth. Use the plastic scrubbie on tough spots. Feel with your fingers to make sure the bowl or plate is clean. Make sure you wash the bottom, too! Rinse the plates and bowls and put them in the dishrack.

Now it’s time for silverware. (You can also wash silverware before doing the bowls and plates.) Never put a sharp knife into a sinkful of water! I keep sharp knives beside the sink and wash them one at a time. I usually don’t put them in the dishrack, either. I keep a separate towel to lay the knives on, and then I dry them and put them away when I’m done with the dishes. Wash the rest of the silverware, rinse it, and then put it in the dishrack.

You might want to change your water now, especially if it’s dirty or cold. Drain the sink, rinse it a little, and then fill the sink again with hot soapy water.

Now wash the pots and pans. If you have anything tomato based or that has touched raw meat, save it for last. Keep the dirtiest pots and pans for last as well. Rarely are dishes dirty enough to need “to soak” over night. Give pots and pans a good scrub with the plastic scrubbie. Whatever it is will probably come up. One way to make sure that you won’t have to soak dishes over night is to rinse them immediately after using them, and allow them to soak in soapy water while you eat. (Never reuse that soaking water! Drain it and rinse the sink and start anew!)

Rinse your pots and pans. You might have to dry some of these and put them away if there isn’t enough room on the dishrack. Generally, it’s more sanitary to let the dishes dry overnight. You can always add “Empty dishrack” to your first five.

I know this page is about washing dishes, but I just want to remind you that you’re not really done until you have sprayed and wiped down the counters, the stove, and the microwave (inside and out.) And, of course, you’re not done if you leave the sink dirty.