Cleaning with Samma

Hi Dee Ho and Happy Leap Day Peeps!!













I know I still haven't posted on my San Francisco trip but I haven't forgotten and I promise I WILL get to it!!

Now, let's talk about something no one likes to do but we all gotta do it.  Cleaning the house!!  But before we talk about the dreaded chores of housecleaning let us laugh a bit shall we?

seriously this is so very much ME!!!

Oh yes, don't think those exact thoughts haven't crossed my mind!

This one is especially true right now- I'd rather be in the yard or garden than in the house.

I'm going to share with you a few tips and products that help me clean my house. First of all contrary to my family's belief.....  I detest cleaning but I really detest the feeling I have when someone knocks on my door and my house is a mess.  I mean come on, it's bad enough that they find me in yesterdays clothes and unshowered.

(a side note: some of the photos/descriptions are affiliate links which means I could receive compensation for using those links)

To start things off I want to say that I don't follow FlyLady religiously any longer BUT if you need a place to get started then you won't go wrong with her plan.  I do not work outside the home at this time (not a Payroll SHE) so I'm a bit more flexible with my routines now.   I will tell you that when I was a PayRoll SHE  I followed FlyLady to the very last detail.   If you hate spending your weekends cleaning or nagging your family to help you and are tired of living in CHAOS, sick of tackling Mt. Washmore  and have more HOTSPOTS than you can count then I encourage you to read her site .  She's done the hard part for you in figuring out where to start and how to keep going without burning out.  With that said, I do maintain my routines and I still receive her daily emails and I know when it's time to clean something because she reminds me.  I'm old and my brain is full of wonderful memories  and I don't need to waste valuable brain space remembering when to clean my trash cans.   :-)   (wonder what I was talking about with all those acronyms? click here)

Let's get started with my house cleaning and products because after all, I've got work to do!

This is a product I use daily.  We have very dark granite in the kitchen and our master bath and they smudge and smear so easily.  This stuff is so handy that I just keep a rag with it and spritz those counters down every day.  Plus it smells good too!   

Method Daily Granite Cleaner

This is just a water/vinegar mixture in a spray bottle.  I use this and a paper towel to wipe down all the mirrors and glass doors in the house weekly.  Keeps things tidy and 1 paper towel will do the entire house unless my people get wild with the dental floss. 

This is my refrigerator and while I love the size it does show every stinking fingerprint and smudge that comes within a ten mile radius.  

This is truly the only stuff that I've found that works this well on stainless steel with NO streaking.  Can I get an amen peeps?!

Be careful of the overspray on your tile floors because it will make them slick.

Zep Commercial Stainless Steel Cleaner

If it needs scrubbing in our house this is what I'm using. It never scratches the surface yet it does an amazing job and it's pretty inexpensive and can be found anywhere.

Bar Keepers Friend®

All the sinks in the house get the Bar Keepers Friend scrub except our master bathroom sinks and those get this crazy good product.  We have Copper sinks in our bathroom and no kidding I used to spend at least 20 minutes every week cleaning two sinks, now it's 5 minutes tops for both sinks.  

We have very hard water and those sinks get stained so quickly so this little gem is a life saver for me cause Ain't Nobody got time for that kind of cleaning every week!

Wright's Copper Cream

Hands down my FAVORITE can't live without cleaning product!!! 

They are under every sink in our house.  If you read FlyLady then you know that Swish n Swipe every day is the way to keep your bathroom clean and happy and these are the perfect solution for that.   I swish and swipe the counters and such while I brush my teeth ( I have an electric toothbrush so I'm only using 1 hand). In the kitchen, they get used daily as well.   I mean seriously, I'm the Clorox Disinfecting Wipes poster child.   

This is another FlyLady Swish-n-Swipe tool.  I keep a toilet brush beside every toilet in our house (and mind you that is a total of 6 toilets!!) but in our master bathroom I keep an old large flower vase filled with warm water and some kind of soap and swish around the toilet bowl every day.   Soap is soap people and you can even use up some old shampoo you didn't like.   I don't like to scrub toilets and with a brush standing ready it's easy to do every day.  

Dusting, I employ several methods with dusting.  Daily dusting gets the feather duster and/or Swiffer Disposable Cleaning Dusters then around once a week I grab the ole'Pledge Orange Clean Furniture Spray and give the tops of the furniture a good cleaning. 

Next up is a good vacuum cleaner.  This is one of those things where I encourage you to visit a professional vacuum store, talk with them about your specific flooring situations and then buy the best vacuum you can afford.   Ours is a Miele Complete C3 Marin Canister Vacuum Cleaner.  We have mostly wood or tile floors but the upstairs bonus room and extra bedrooms are carpeted and we have several beautiful wool rugs we inherited such as the one you see in the photo.  We also have a dog and a cat so this particular model was the best choice for us.  I can't tell you enough how going to a vacuum store and working with a professional will ensure that you get the right vacuum for your home and yes, it is an investment.   Once a week my house gets a very good vacuuming but on a daily basis I have this and I love it for the hard surfaces.

and this for the carpeted surfaces

Once those floors get that good weekly vacuuming then it's time to mop and folks I don't mix up different buckets for my various hard floors.  I just put a little warm water and a glug of Murphy Oil Soap in a bucket and grab a good old fashioned mop and go to town.  

As you can see I really don't use a huge variety of cleaning products as the ones I do use get the jobs done for me.  If I need to deep clean then plain vinegar with some of my essential oils added in are all I need. 

Last laugh for the day!!

So are you a clean fanatic? Do you follow FlyLady?  Do you care?    What are some of your best cleaning tips?  I'd love to hear them and share them with all the peeps!!  You know so we can all just drink wine freely.    

Peace, Love & Leap Day