Organization & Cleaning

Have you ever left your wet towels in the washer a little too long? Even if you run them through the wash again it’s likely that you aren’t going to get rid of the mildew smell. From then on every time you get out of the shower all you can smell is mildew! It’s gross enough to make me to want to throw the towels out and buy new ones.

Even if you never have accidentally left the towels in the washer, after time they can get a smell to them that isn’t exactly pleasant. I have the best trick for eliminating this stench with adding literally no extra time to your normal cleaning routine and chances are you already have the supplies to do it in your home right now!

Ingredients:

1 cup vinegar

hot water

Directions:

Add one cup of vinegar to the wash replacing your detergent. Throw the towels in the washing machine and run them on the hottest cycle. After this, your towels should not have any mildew smell. I have used this trick for years and it has never not worked for me, I hope it works for you too!

If you are looking for other cleaning tips check out these links:

Daily Cleaning Checklist

Make Everyday Cleaning Easier

Cleaning Your Trash Cans

DIY Carpet Deodorizer

I try to stay on top of the mess in my home, but sometimes I’m caught off guard and need to speed clean before a guest comes over.

This post is sponsored by Chesapeake Bay Candle, but all opinions are my own.

Make The House Smell Clean

The first thing I do is light a candle before I even start to clean. That way by the time I am done speed cleaning the home, it already smells good!

My favorite candles are from Chesapeake Bay Candle’s Home Heritage Collection. I have many favorite scents from the collection, but the ones I use most often are “Bay Cottage” and “Cypress & Oak“. Both of them have a warm and cozy scent which I love.

They also burn for hours which is a huge deal for me. I can’t stand buying a candle and it doesn’t last very long or I can’t smell it throughout the home. The Heritage Collection smells delightful and you can smell it from anywhere in the home without being an overwhelming scent.

I am a candle freak and will leave them burning all day which is why this collection is the gift that keeps on giving. The smallest candle in this collection burns for about 20 hours and the largest burns for about 80!  My home feels and smells warm and inviting  when my guests arrive.

Start at one end of the house

I start in the master bedroom (on one end of the house) and begin to pick up everything. If it doesn’t belong in that room I set it in the next room. I work my way through the entire house so that I am not running back and forth from room to room over and over again. By the time I make it to the last room of the house my pile is small if not gone.

There is usually a lot of stuff that is out of place…I have a toddler.

It might seem dumb to some people to move the mess from room to room, but I think it saves a lot of time.

Keep up with laundry

Have laundry baskets in every bedroom or bathroom so that everyone has a place to . throw their dirty clothes. We have 2 in our bedroom and then 1 in my daughters bedroom.

Another tip that I have for laundry is to try and do at least one load per day. This will keep you on top and keep you from getting overwhelmed.

Have your supplies together

Get a caddy to carry your cleaning supplies from room to room with. Or you can keep supplies throughout the house like under the bathroom sink. This will make cleaning much faster. You can just grab the Windex or toilet cleaner right from under the sink in the morning or right before you go to bed. You’ll have a clean bathroom in just minutes.

Stay on a routine

The easiest way for you to speed clean would be to stay on top of the mess every day. Use a daily cleaning schedule or something similar to help you stay on top of the mess so that you aren’t rushing around last minute to get your house cleaned.

There is a difference between a messy home and a dirty home. If you stay on top of the dirt and grime regularly then all you have to do is speed clean the mess when needed.

Visit Chesapeake Bay Candle and pick your favorite scent to welcome your last minute guests.

Anyone with a dog at home probably knows that keeping your house clean with dogs around is no easy task. Especially if you have a breed that sheds.

This week I am partnering with Dyson to being you some tips on how to keep your house clean with dogs because Dyson has the best vacuums I have used for getting ALL of the dog hair out of your home!

Although our home will probably never be as clean as it was pre-dog, I have learned a few tips for keeping your house clean with dogs. 

Invest in a Good Vacuum

I am kind of embarrassed to admit how long it took me to realize that our old vacuum just wasn’t cutting it anymore. I guess I was so used to it’s mediocre cleaning skills that I thought it was normal for your vacuum to be that way.

Well, I quickly learned how wrong I was when we finally got the new Dyson Ball Animal 2. It self adjusts to seal around either carpets, hardwood, or tile which is perfect for our home as we have hardwood and tile with rugs throughout the house.

By our backdoor is the absolute dirtiest place in our home. You can see the dirt collect in the grout of the tile..and I vacuum several times per week! My new Dyson visibly sucked the dirt right out of the grout. I was amazed since neither my old vacuum or a broom could clean that well.

But, my favorite feature of the Dyson Ball Animal 2 is that the actual vacuum head will run along your baseboards and get the dog hair out of the corners! With hardwood floors the dog hair tends to disperse and collect along the walls, which looks super nasty.

This vacuum costs a pretty penny, but it is WAY worth the cost and it comes with a 5 year warranty.

Protect Your Furniture

Our dog sleeps on the furniture…she thinks that she is a human. So in order to protect our almost brand new couches we keep a blanket over the area that our dog lays on. It is a little inconvenient for when guests come over because we have to remove the blanket, but I would rather them sit on a clean couch than a furry one!

I thought I was done talking about our new Dyson, but I forgot to mention that it also has an attachment that will run smoothly across your couches and it picks up every dog hair imaginable! We also have really fine dirt/sand in our backyard and our dog tracks it in which usually ends up on our furniture somehow and the Dyson attachment picks up all of that fine dirt.

Deodorize

If you have carpet and a dog you are probably going to need to deodorize it at some point. You can do this by pouring plain baking soda on the carpet and then vacuuming it up after a few minutes. They also sell different carpet powder cleaners that will do the same thing.

I actually make my own carpet deodorizer using essential oils and baking soda. It smells amazing and is chemical free!

Here is a picture of our daughter with Harley…she obviously is loved just a tiny bit 🙂

Wipe Their Feet

I actually really don’t like doing this, but every time Harley comes in from outside one of us wipes her feet on a towel. Like I mentioned before, we have really fine dirt in our backyard and it sticks to her feet badly. Which unfortunately means it ends up all over our house.

We have a doggy door so actually remembering to do this is hard sometimes, but we really try to keep up with it in order to keep our house clean.

These are the things that we do regularly for keeping our house clean with dogs. We love our Harley girl and put up with her messes because of it 😉

When spring rolls around many of us get our cleaning supplies out and deep clean the entire house, but how many of you make sure to complete your outdoor spring cleaning too?

Over the fall and winter the outsides of our homes naturally tend to get neglected. We aren’t out there mowing or gardening and no one wants to wash windows in freezing weather. When springtime comes, that is the time to get out there and deep clean the outside of your home.

Here an outdoor spring cleaning checklist to use for your home this year:

• Clean the front porch. Remove all furniture and decorations from the front porch and power wash it. If you don’t have a power washer then a water hose spray nozzle will do just fine. Be sure and spray the underneath of your patio roof to get rid of spider webs. Clean the light fixtures too!
• Wash outdoor furniture. Depending on what the decorations are on your porch, wash them appropriately. Ours can be sprayed off after we remove the cushions and the tables can be cleaned with glass cleaner.
• Clean the front porch mat.
• Wash the front door.
• Repeat the first 4 steps on the back porch.
• Clean and organize your garage. Throw out anything that is broken or that you know you aren’t ever going to use again. You’ll be surprised at the amount of stuff that accumulates in the garage over the winter.
• Clean the windows. Remove all of the screens and wash both the outside of the windows and the screens. This is one of my favorite ways to spruce up the outside of my home. SO much dirt collects in between the window and the screen each year!
• Plant flowers. Pull up any dead plants and plant flowers in your flower beds or put potted plants and bushes out in front of your house.
• Clean out your gutters. After the leaves fall from the trees in the fall your gutters can get pretty dirty.
• Mow the yard. Depending on when you start this checklist it may already be time to start mowing and weed eating your yard.

After you finish this your outdoor spring cleaning should be done and the outside of your house will look totally freshened up!

Before we moved into a house with hardwood floors, I never knew how difficult it was to get hardwood floors clean.

There is nothing that I dislike more than walking to my house bare footed and little particles of dirt sticking to the bottoms of my feet! It used to drive me insane and make me hate my beautiful hardwood.

It is also such a challenge to find a cleaner that is safe to use on hardwood, but doesn’t leave a film of cleaner on the surface. Bona PowerPlus Hardwood Floor Deep Cleaner and the Bona PowerPlus Microfiber mop pad were introduced to me by a friend with hardwood floors…and toddlers!

We have a chocolate lab that sheds like crazy and never fails to bring clumps of dirt into our house on her paws. Our toddler is the messiest creature I have ever met (haha!) and Brandon does “dirt work” and literally works in dirt all day long. So my floors need to be cleaned ever other day at the minimum!

These 2 are the ones that keep my floor dirty…

Deep Cleaning Hardwood Floors

I always sweep the floor first to get rid of most of the dirt and dust on the ground. Hardwood floors are also really bad about collecting dust, especially underneath furniture! You don’t even want to see the amount of dirt that collects at my backdoor every week. It’s bad!

Then I use the stream setting on the Bona PowerPlus spray bottle and spray the cleaner directly onto the floor. I usually only spray sections at a time. Then I use my Bona mop with the Microfiber Deep Clean Pad and scrub the floors.

The Bona PowerPlus cleaner is  designed to get the grime off of the floors easier which I am all for since I am usually trying to mop the floors as quick as possible before my toddler needs my attention again. It also doesn’t leave a film on the floors at all and at the same time leaves them feeling super clean.

I love being able to wear no socks in my house and the floors just feeling clean!

The Bona microfiber deep clean pad is really efficient too. It is washable so it isn’t like mops where you would have to buy new pads all the time. I usually just throw it into the wash with my towels. The mops are also super thin and lightweight. My toddler likes to help push the mop around and she can actually control it really well. If you have young kids this might be a good product to get them started on for chores!

Then about once every week or two I do a steam clean on my floors with just water simply because I just like the idea of cleaning with heat every now and then!

I have a coupon for $3 off of Bona products so be sure to head on over and grab it!