Does It Really Work? Testing Out Pinterest Cleaning Tips

pinterest-cleaning-tips

Before I started my current gig as Beaverhausen Family Domestic Engineer, I worked full time.

Between the job and the commute (not to mention any traveling), it left me right around 2.5 hrs per day of awake time at home to complete any household tasks – cooking, eating, cleaning up, showering, laundry, loving the cat, caring for/homework with/ talking to kid #1, catching up on that day’s Y&R – the list goes on and on.

Enter Merry Maids

The weekends became the only time the Mister and I would have to get this house clean and I’m not going to lie, spending that precious time off scrubbing toilets really stunk. We made the decision to hire Merry Maids and it was the best call we had made in years. high-fiving myself

Every two weeks these heavenly angels would sneak into the house while everyone was at work (or school) and clean up. They did the bathrooms, the kitchen.. they did it all.

They even folded the toilet paper end like it was a hotel bathroom! Boy, was that nice. Financially it wasn’t as expensive as you might imagine and for us at the time, it made perfect sense in every way.

Now that I am no longer working though, my sweet heavenly Merry Maid angels had to be put on permanent hold. It’s just so sad still, and it’s been four years.

I need a minute to gather myself….OK, I’m back.

Life After Merry Maids

Now I am the replacement. And while typically a cheery person, something about hours and hours of cleaning morphs me into someone that I don’t know, don’t like, and is quite honestly the furthest thing from Merry I could imagine. The end result of cleaning is always awesome but come on, there’s got to be an easier way.

With Pinterest at my fingertips, I was (and still am, actually) on a mission to keep it quick, simple and easy so that I can have more time to watch my stories, eat Bonbons with my feet up, and enjoy quiet afternoon cocktails in a shady hammock. Ha, right.

Here are a few ideas that I have tried and oddly, they are all white vinegar based. Sometimes I think Pinterest owns stock in white vinegar.

Some of these are keepers, and some are not. Outside of having someone else do it, do you have any tips that make cleaning quicker or easier? I’d love to read them!

Hard Water Helper

The technical term, I believe, is “white crud buildup” and it happens from living in an area with hard water. Beaver’s water is very hard and we have a ton of white crud. There are a couple different ideas on Pinterest for this.

First, put a sandwich baggie on your shower head, sink faucet, kitchen sprayer, wherever the offensive crud lives, and fill it with white vinegar. Rubber band (or gum band, however you want to say it) it closed and let it soak overnight.

shower-head

 

Pro Tip: If you are doing your shower or tub, I find draping a towel over the water turn-on helps you remember it’s there in the morning. Big huge mess otherwise!

Verdict: Works great! It’s a little tricky getting the bag filled and closed on a stationary shower head, but it really worked on opening up all of those crudded over, weird-angle-spraying holes.

The other hard water tip was to saturate paper towels and lay them around a crudded up faucet. While this did work, it actually worked a little too well and took the finish and sealant off of the bathroom faucet. Woops! Try this one with caution, folks!

**For hard water or rust stains on porcelain, a tip straight from Fischer’s Hardware in town: A Scouring Stick. It’s like a pumice stone and takes rust and crud stains right off. (If you don’t know what a pumice stone is, it’s that weird rock the lady in your life showers with). This thing is amazing, really.

scouring-stick

Non-Stinky Oven Cleaning

This was a big one for me to try. Have you ever heard of thermal shock? It’s when a glass baking dish explodes in your oven. That happened while I was roasting tomatoes. Ugh. What a mess.

I scooped out the disaster but there were still splattered remnants everywhere. There are a couple Pins out there that are generally the same idea – You make a paste of baking soda, white vinegar, and dish soap, you smear it on the oven and then you let it soak overnight. The next day it will magically wipe the gunk away and you will be left with a gleaming and beautifully clean oven!

Verdict: Don’t believe everything you read, folks. What you will be left with is a crust all over your oven that you need a putty knife to scrape off. Just use oven cleaner and open a window.

Microwave Cleaning Quick-n-Easy

Love this one. My oldest is a smart kid, he really is, but he struggles with a few simple life skills.

One area that is really bad for him is how to cover food before microwaving it. It looks like a murder scene in there when he gets done cooking a snack.

Instead of scouring the stupid thing every night, the tip is to fill a microwave safe (obviously) bowl with a cup or two of water and two tablespoons of white vinegar, nuke it for five minutes and the gunk is supposed to come off with just the wipe of a paper towel!

Verdict: Yes. I love this. While putting the rest of the dishes in the dishwasher, I have this concoction cookin’ and by the time the dishes are done, the microwave is steamed and ready for a wipe down. Works great!

Laminate Floor Cleaner

This one seemed like a perfect fit. We have laminate throughout the house and also a Rubbermaid refillable mop. It is white vinegar (seriously Pinterest?), water and dish soap. Just spray it and wipe, and wala! Gleaming floors.

Verdict: Oh, Pinterest, you break my heart. This seemed to work for awhile so I was using it exclusively throughout the house…until I was scrubbing kitchen cabinet doors and noticed the finish on the trim at the bottom of the cabinets (which, might I add, was all brand new) was bubbling and peeling!

Hey, did I mention, brand new kitchen?? After a quick call to Kraftmaid to figure out whaaaaat was going on, it was determined that the white vinegar concoction that I was so happily using on the floors took the varnish off of the trim. Awesome.

They also advised me to stop using it on the laminate because it would eventually take the finish off it too. So, you want the verdict on this?? The verdict is…. Floors + White Vinegar = Nightmare.

That’s all I have for now! Hopefully this helped you narrow down some of those 537 white vinegar Pins you have on your ‘Home stuff to try’ board.

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Comments

  1. says

    It never ends, does it? The kitchen is never clean for long. And the sink is never empty. I wish I had a magic wand that could make all the kitchen messes disappear every night.Haizz

  2. says

    I haven’t ever tried placing a bag over my shower head and pouring white vinegar in it. I’m glad it works, though. I usually just hire professional cleaning crews. Are all of these tips from Pinterest?

    Alex Jennings |

    • Ana says

      Hi Alex!
      Yes, these were all found on Pinterest in different pins. I never realized how bad the Beaver water was until our professional crew stop showing up! Ha
      Thanks for your comment!
      Ana B

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