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House Cleaning Tips: A Three Part Series, Part I: The Living Room
Whether you are staging your home for selling or your place needs some sprucing up, this three-part series will help you get your place looking brand spankin’ new. To start the series, we will begin with tips on cleaning the living room.
The living room can take a beating as it is one of the most trafficked areas of the house. Here we break down the main elements of the room and offer our the best tips for cleaning each.
Carpet Rehabilitation
Furniture can leave a heavy imprint on the carpet which can be difficult to release. To un-train the fibers, place several ice cubes on the indentations and let them melt. Once dry, use a fork to pull up the fibers and vacuum to loosen them and make them soft to the touch again.
Organic carpet stains such as food, dirt and pet stains, can be removed with a recipe of one part vinegar, and two parts water. Place the mixture in a spray bottle and douse the stain with the spray. Lay a damp kitchen rag over the sprayed areas. Place a heated iron over the rag for 30 seconds. If the stain is darker, repeat the steps for a deeper clean.
Wood Furniture
If it has been a struggle to get kids and guests to use coasters, your wood furniture is probably covered with unsightly cup rings. There is hope, however. You can eliminate drink rings by placing a pillowcase over the ring and ironing it for 5 seconds. Lift the case to keep an eye on the wood and repeat until the stain is gone.
Those pesky scratches on the wood furniture can be buffed out with a mixture of ½ cup of vinegar and ½ of olive oil. Combine the vinegar and olive oil in a mixing bowl. Dip a microfiber cloth into the bowl to saturate it and ring out the excess. Rub the cloth over the table scratches and you'll see an improvement in the appearance of the scratches.
Sofa Stains
First and foremost, check your sofa’s label tag to see what cleaning limitations there are. Couches come in all different, shapes, sizes, colors, and materials. Be sure that you are not about to use water or cleaning solution that will ruin the fabric. Here are a few different upholstery codes that you may find:
- W: can be cleaned with water
- S: cleaned with solvents; no water
- S/W: water and solvents can be used
- X: vacuum only
If you are using a rag or scrub tool to clean your couch, use either white or beige colored sponge, cloth or bristled brush. Sponges and rags that are colored may bleed onto your couch.
Dusty Blinds
An easy way to get in between the individual slates of your blinds is to take a pair of cooking tongs, wrap each end of the tongs with small microfiber towels and tie hairbands around to keep the wrapped towels in place. Rubber bands tend to stick while sliding across the slats. Pinch each slat and slide all the way across each individual blind for dust-free blinds.
Dusty Vents
Clean your air vent grates by first using the bristle hose on your vacuum cleaner to collect vent dust. Next, spray 409 on a microfiber towel, drape it over a butter knife and slide across each slat on the vent. No more dusty vents.
Stay tuned for the next blog for when we clean your kitchen to be staging-ready. Need help with your move?Contact Compass today for a quote.
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House Cleaning Tips: A Three-Part Series, Part 2: The Kitchen
in MovingBy Super User
Prepping your home for showing and sale is a pain, but it pays dividends. Buyers are more enticed by a clean house, so we’re giving you the best cleaning tips to help you get your house in great shape. Last month we discussed cleaning hacks for your living room. This month we are going to give you some tricks to clean common kitchen amenities. Cleaning is the most cost effective way to spruce up your place to get it sold.
Oven Cleaning Tips
You may think that the gunk that is on the oven door glass is impossible to clean because it’s out of reach, but it’s not. First, pull the front bottom drawer of the oven out so you can get access to the open edge of the oven door, which is on the bottom of the door. Next, use a rubber band to tie a Clorox wipe to the end of a straightened clothes hanger. Then, coming up from the bottom of the oven door, slide the wipe up between the glass and the over door and wiggle it around till you’ve wiped off all the gunk in those near impossible spots.
Stove Cleaning Tips
To clean a gas stove, remove the cooking grates and brush off large crumbs. Place the grates in the sink with warm water and soap to soak during the rest of the process. Spray a mixture of half water and half vinegar onto your stove top. Let the mixture soak for 2 minutes and then with a towel wipe away the residue. Scrub the cooking grates down with soap and a sponge, dry with a cloth, and place back on your stove.
For a glass top stove, sprinkle baking soda all over the top of the stove. Use a few old dish rags that are soaked in hot water and lay over every inch of your stove top. Let the rags lay over the baking soda powder for 15 minutes. You can add a little bit of hot water to the rags as they soak on the stove if they start to dry out. Use one of the rags to wipe up the residue and you will have an immaculate stove top.
How to Clean the Microwave
Place a mixture of ½ cup of water and ½ cup of white vinegar in a bowl in your microwave for 10 minutes on high power. Remove the bowl and use a sponge to wipe down the walls of the microwave. Lift up the turning plate to wipe down as well as underneath the turning plate with the same mixed solution.
Best Way to Clean the Refrigerator
Remove all of the food in your refrigerator. Check expiration dates on drinks, dressings, and condiments and throw out expired food. Sort through leftovers and decide what goes and what stays. Whatever isn’t thrown out, place into a cooler or ask a friend to borrow some of their refrigerator space for a few hours.
Next, take out the drawers and shelves and soak them in warm water and dish soap. It may be easier to soak these in a bathtub as the shelves and drawers can be fairly large. Then scrub down the walls of the fridge with baking soda and water on a sponge while the drawers and shelves soak.
When you’ve completed wiping out the fridge, wipe down the drawers and shelves then pull them out of the water and let them dry before putting them back in the refrigerator. The last step is to put your food back in the refrigerator.
How to Get Rid of Kitchen-Sink Stink
There are going to be sponges to rinse and items to soak, so it’s a good idea to save the kitchen sink cleaning for last.
Food doesn’t always go down the drain how you’d like. And you’d never know until that terrible smell it starts to give off. While your sink is running, turn on the garbage disposal and put down a few ice cubes and a tablespoon of vinegar. The ice cubes will sharpen the blades, and the vinegar will get rid of the things that get tucked into the nooks and crannies of the drain. If you cut up a lemon into fourths and run the lemon fourths through the garbage disposal, the acidity helps break down the food and will give off a fresh lemon scent.
Use another lemon cut in half with rock salt to scrub the inside of the sink. This will help with pesky hard water stains and help with the sink stink as well.
Next month we will walk you through cleaning tricks for the bathrooms, so prospective buyers are wowed by your house. Need help with your move? Need a place to store the extra stuff you've got around while you’re showing your house? Contact Compass Allied today for Colorado's best moving and storage services.