Clean Freak!

Normally, I am not the holder of the title, "Clean Freak" in our home (that is reserved for Russ). But I finished my BYU class and had a couple of free weeks before I ordered my next one so I had to find some way to fill the void!

It started with some innocent wiping down of the front of my kitchen cupboards. They were so gross and I was amazed at how clean I got them! So I caught the cleaning bug and I decided to get rid of this white stripe that is inside my oven door that has been bugging me for YEARS! 

Before: Many years ago I was cleaning the oven and I sprayed too much 409 on it and it got inside the door and dripped down the inside leaving this innaccessible white streak. The other day I noticed screws on the top and side of my oven door making me wonder if it was possible to take the door apart so I could reach the blasted streak on the inside.

  

So I took the screws out and the handle came off, the sides and bottom opened up and I could finally reach the streak! I used the evil 409 and really scrubbed down all surfaces inside the door. It was amazing how greasy and dusty it was! But the streak was gone!

The trickiest part of the whole thing was getting the oven back together! It took me a few minutes to get everything lined up right and to figure out the right order to do things, but alas, I did it! Now my oven door acutally looks clean when I clean it! :)

We have had this hole in our ceiling for 3 years because we have had a leak that we have not been able to find the source for and so we have had to leave it open so it can leak onto the floor (onto a towel).

Then I discovered that it was damaging the ceiling in the bathroom too. It was time to finally figure it out. The leak mostly leaks when the dryer is running and the more laundry I do, the more it leaks. After a homemaking lesson on household tips where Robin Hirsche talked about cleaning out her dryer ducts with a leaf blower, and another conversation with the Beasleys, I finally figured out that it was leaking becuase our duct was sooooo full of lint, the moisture from the towels and clothes was getting trapped in the lint and leaking out of the poorly sealed duct!

On the same day that I was cleaning out my oven, I called a duct company, "The Top Hatter" and for $140 they came and cleaned my duct. They said I was exactly right about where the leak was coming from and when they go to clean out ducts, they often find holes punched in the ceiling all along under the duct because of moisture build up just like mine! See the lint on the floor in front of the hole in the wall. That was just what was hanging out of the opening! Another problem was our long silver duct leading from the dryer to the wall opening. It was way too long and kinked and not helping our air flow problem either.

First they blew the lint out from the inside with a huge leaf blower type thing, then they used a big snake and twisted it around inside the duct from both directions. It was soooo loud when they spun that sucker around.

This is what they had cleaned out of the duct. It has been building up over the last 10 years. I guess you are supposed to clean your ducts every two years. OOPS!!!

The next phase of cleaning was to touch-up paint all the areas on my newly cleaned cuboards where the paint had rubbed or chipped off over the last few years. I do this probably every 3 years or so. Russ and I painted these cupboards white ourselves about a year after we moved in to this house. 

These two cuboards under the sink were the worst because of all the water that drips down them, and the grimy hands that are constantly opening them to access the garbage, so I basically repainted the whole thing. LOVE IT!

It looked so much better I even had to scrub down the garbage can so it looked good too!

This is an after picture of my next project. I spent about 3 hours cleaning out and redoing the labels on my sand collection. Before this, the labels were on white card stock and not laminated and the blue writing on them had gotten wet and smeared and the labels were all warped and lumpy. They were tied on with thinner off white ribbon and just looked yucky. I had contemplated throwing it all out and then decided to just jazz them all up and I'm so glad I did! 

This time I used thicker ribbon, different fonts, different colors of card stock and I waterproofed the labels. I also dumped out all the shells and sea glass which were gray with dust and washed them all clean and shiny. I even rinsed some of the sand, and what I didn't rinse, got cleaner just by dumping it into a bowl while I cleaned out the jars. 

Ok! Next on the list was sewing up my splitting couch! I was inspired by the apholstery needles that my mom gave me of my sister, Liza's. So I credit Liza for this long overdue repair. 

It was a lot harder than I thought in some ways, and it was also easier than I thought in others. It was hard to get that needle through the leather but I finally got in the groove!

The corner of the ottoman was the first place to split open many years ago. When it bugged me, I just turned it around so I couldn't see it. I couldn't do that to the arm of the chair though. It was time to take care of it!

Olivia took this pic. of me stitching the seat of the chair cushion. It was so hard to see the holes down in the crack so they got me a headlamp! SO SMART and helpfull!

After! This first one took me about 1.5 hours!!! My hands were soooo tired! But my soul was sooooo happy!

All done seat!!! I need to get an after picture of the ottoman, but it looks fabulous as well!

Besides the reward of having a much cleaner, less drippy, and nicer looking home, was this puzzle that Chloe and Olivia and I were working on. After lots of stitching or painting, I would let myself put it together for a while and when I finished my last project, Chloe and I raced to be the one who put in the last piece. Chloe won!

Another project I worked on but didn't take pictures of, was touch up painting my tan painted walls both down stairs and upstairs. It started out with just a few spots, but ended up being entire walls. Note: if you don't want to have to redo all your touch ups, get your paint shaken up really well at Home Depot before you start your project. I stirred it like crazy, but after my paint dried, you could see a slight difference in the paint color and sheen. I had it shaken and redid almost all of them and it looked better but some I had to do some creative blending. But all in all, my house looks AMAZING!!! 

Now what?!! I need to get my carpets cleaned!