Home and Garden Diva

You are here: Home / Archives for Home Improvement / A clean home

A womans work is never done – more cleaning in the basement for me!

by

It looks like I’m going to be spending yet another weekend cleaning up and organizing the house. Oh and when I say house I mainly mean basement because that is where the MESS is.

Honestly … I don’t know how or why the basement became the mess that it is, but it needs major work. I know when we first moved into the house 10.5 years ago we stored several boxes downstairs – boxes that contained items that we meant to pull out once all of the renovations were finished. Trouble is, those renovations were never completely finished and those boxes are still down there along with multiple other things. It also doesn’t help that this is an old 1927 house with only four small closets – all on the uppermost floor. Storage space is at a premium.

On top of all this … my soon to be ex – oh yes, I said that – ex – is going away this weekend and he won’t be helping me clean up the basement. He hasn’t really done much in the way of cleaning or sorting out stuff down there anyway so far so I guess I didn’t expect much help, but there’s a lot of heavy stuff to lift so I guess if you guys don’t hear from me call for a search party because I might be buried under a mountain of stuff in the basement. Yes it’s that bad down there. Semi hoarders delight.

There’s even a half decent sectional couch with a pull out bed buried under all those boxes, coats, Christmas decorations and renovation supplies. I hope that by the end of the weekend I might be able to see it!

Speaking of sectionals … I might be moving in a few months because of the situation I alluded to above – although I really don’t want to move. This is MY house. If I do have to move that old sectional is staying in the basement and it can be the new owners problem because it’s huge. However, I’ve been looking at this site – sectional sofa los angeles and they have a nice selection. Perhaps if I do end up in an apartment or condo I’ll get a small sectional – with a pull out bed if possible, as those are always handy for guests!

Ok .. I’m going to relax because tomorrow I have a lot of work to do. If anyone wants to come and lend me a hand you are more than welcome. I could use the help and the company.

Keeping a leather couch clean

by

I’m trying to figure out how to clean my leather couches. I’ve had them for about six years – maybe longer and well .. when we first got them I used to clean them regularly with the cleaning fluid that came with them, but of course I ran out of that stuff and never replaced it and slowly slacked off in my cleaning of the leather surfaces.

I think that was a big mistake. Not only does that couch look kind of beat up and aged (to some degree) but I think there’s a stain in one area so now I need to try to remove a leather stain. That’s what I get for slacking off! If I get the couch clean and looking good again I’m going to clean it regularly again so that it never looks like this again.

Do you have a leather couch? Do you try to clean it regularly too?

Kitchen cupboards and fridge need a good cleaning

by

Sometime in the near future- probably this month, my kitchen is going to get a thorough cleaning out.

By this I mean, not only scrubbing the floors, the oven and counters, but I plan on emptying out the fridge and all of the cupboards.

Unless you have a bare fridge, I think most of us can say that we all have a jar or two or ten that has been sitting in the back of the fridge or in the fridge door for God only knows how long. Did you know that most items such as jams, mayonnaise and relishes are only good for three or four months once they’re opened? If you’re like us and you don’t us them up that fast they could be in the fridge a heck of a lot longer than that, right? Not good.

So between the fridge and all the stuff I find in the back of our cupboards I’m sure there will be a lot of stuff thrown out. I know there are things in my cupboards that I haven’t used in years. That includes foods like muffin mixes and small appliances.

Once I do get around to clearing out my cupboards I might take a serious look at my pots and pans. I have Lagostina pots and I love them, but they’re getting old or at least some of the ones that I use most often are getting a little worn out. Maybe I could add one or two new pieces of enamel cookware to my collection? I know I’ll have more room for them once the cupboards get cleared out.

Whens the last time you totally cleaned out your fridge and or cupboards? Big job, isn’t it?

Good Bye heat wave

by

I’m so glad this heat wave that we’ve been going through all week finally seems to be coming to an end.

I can’t wait to give not only the air conditioning but maybe our new Hunter ceiling fans a bit of a break this weekend.

Oh and it will be nice to have the doors and windows open – get some fresh air inside the house.

I love air conditioning when it’s hot outside. It’s a necessary evil … but the longer it’s on and the doors are sealed shut the staler the air inside the house seems. It’s so nice once we can open the doors and windows and I can feel a breeze on my skin.

Don’t you love it when the weather is nice enough that you can let some fresh air into the house?

When will the new neighbors move in?

by

I think our new neighbors might move in sometime soon. They’ve had possession of the house next door for about two weeks now and they’ve been coming by to clean and paint the house.

I’m not sure what they’re doing as far as renovating or repair the house goes. I’ve heard a lot of hammering and banging, but it doesn’t seem like they are doing a lot of new work. unlike us when we got our house – we were at our house every day for three weeks tearing down walls, refinishing floors, plastering and painting before we finally moved in … whereas our new neighbors have only visited their new home about four times since they got the key.

Anyway, since it doesn’t seem like they’re doing a lot of work to the house I expect that they must be almost done cleaning and painting so maybe they’ll move in this weekend. If not perhaps the following weekend. It can’t be much longer.

One thing that I liked about moving to our house when we got it was that it was a chance to get new furniture. LOL I loved preparing the rooms and then picking out new contemporary furniture that would look great in each room. As it turned out we didn’t have to buy a lot of new furniture as we had quite a bit in our apartment, but I did get to get all new master bedroom furniture and a year later we got new living room furniture.

We haven’t talked to the new neighbors very much, but they seem nice enough. That’s all I’m hoping for anyway … I mean, we have to share a tiny driveway and our houses are very close to each other so it’s important that we’re at least on friendly terms with our neighbors. Hey … they’ve got to be better than the awful renter neighbors that we’ve had to deal with for the last year.

Meta

Tags

basement bed bedroom clean cleaning clutter dog exercise family fitness flowers friends Furniture garden Health help home house husband ideas Kitchen laptop Lighting money Music neighborhood neighbors party plants room Shopping sick skin spring summer tips tired Toronto Travel tv Vacation walking warm winter work

Pages