A Green Clean

My cousin Colleen is a cleaning genius! Any question about cleaning that you have, she has the answer, and a backup answer too in case you need it. I am the polar opposite of her in that way. Cleaning is a horrible, time consuming, dirty chore that I usually scrape up the money to have someone else do for me. But I want to teach my kiddies that it is important to take care of our own things and so that means I have to actually do it. Boo!

Step 1 was fire the maids. Honestly, it took me about 3 months of being dissatisfied before I got up the courage to risk going it alone. But I’m here now and Colleen has equipped me with her awesome green cleaning methods and I’m going to involve the kids. They think it’s a fun activity, I think it’s help cleaning. We’re all happy. In fact when the kiddies see the pile of groceries I got to do this, they can’t wait to get to the cleaning so we do it a day earlier than I had planned.

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Briana has been asking about what it means to ‘ Go Green’ because at school they’ve been talking about recycling, so I tell the kiddies that one of the things that you can do to go green is to avoid chemicals when you don’t have to use them. Today we are going to make all green cleaning supplies and see that our house is just as clean and nice as when we use those yucky chemicals.

First we clean the shower:

Glass shower door cleaner recipe:

Mix Cornstarch with water to form a paste. Rub it on the door, gently scrub with a rag, use a clean damp rag to wipe off the paste and then a third clean rag to "polish" it. This works well on glass and mirrors too.

We start with 3 tablespoons of cornstarch and slowly add water to get the pasty consistency that we want.

The texture of the cornstarch is it’s own adventure. It looks liquid, feels like a solid, but turns to liquid in our fingers. Even I am mesmerized and join in the play. This of course makes a mess on the floor, but we did it before we did the floor so no harm done.

Then we clean the inside of the shower.

Grout cleaner recipe:

Cut lemons into quarters and use the lemon wedge itself. Rub it into the grout and let it sit for 5 minutes before wiping it off.

Abby’s favorite thing of the day was cleaning the grout with lemon wedges. She loved the citrusy smell and the fun. The girls happily did all three full bathrooms in the house, showers, bathtub, and floors.

When they finish we drop the lemon peels in the garbage disposal – my own trick! (the rest are all Colleen’s this week) – to make the kitchen smell nice and citrusy too.

Next we clean the windows:

The kids are ready to make a new cleaner after I wipe up the tiles, so I move us on to windows, happily surprised to still have my helpers!

Window cleaner recipe:

Here you have two options:

1)    Mix ¼ cup cherry vinegar (smells better than regular vinegar, which would also work), ½ tsp liquid soap or detergent and 2 cups of water in a spray bottle. Shake to blend and spray on windows or mirrors

2)    Just use pure rubbing alcohol

We take the easy route and pour alcohol into our spray bottle. The best tip that I got is to use old, crumpled up newspapers to wipe with, not cloths or paper towels to eliminate lint or paper pieces! That works so well!

  

After that we intend to clean the floors:

Sadly, I realize too late that I don’t own a mop. I warned you about how often I clean! We quickly vacuum and Swiffer – not so green, but oh well. I’ll share the hardwood floor cleaner recipe with you guys anyway.

Hardwood floor cleaner recipe:

Mix ¼ cup of cherry vinegar (or regular vinegar) to one gallon of water and mop with the grain of the floor and voila perfect floor cleaner.

Then we polish the furniture:

The kids are heartbroken over the lack of green floor cleaning. “Mom, you just ruined the whole world with that stuff,” Briana tells me without a hint of realization that she is being melodramatic.“ I rush back to Colleen’s messages praying that there is something else we can do. In the meantime I give the girls my brand new feather duster, only slightly jealous that they get to use it first.

Yeah! There’s a furniture polish recipe.

Furniture polish recipe:

Mix the juice from a whole lemon and a little olive oil. Place it in a spray bottle (or you can dip a rag in it if you don’t have a spray bottle). This works on both real and fake wood. Refrigerate after use and it will last about 5-7 days.

Perfect! The kids love squeezing lemons. We make the furniture polish and I let the kids go around the house polishing the wood (after supervising the first room, Briana’s, so that I knew they knew how to do it) while I do the dishes and load the washing machine.

  

Finally we freshen the air:

The final touch is air freshener.

Air freshener recipe:

Put a couple cinnamon sticks in a small pot of water on the stove. Turn the stove on low and enjoy as the cinnamon smell takes over your house!

It takes a while to permeate the kitchen, but when it finally does, it smells heavenly, like fresh baked cookies – am I the only one who thinks heaven smells like fresh baked cookies?  

I’m definitely repeating this over the holidays when we have people over!

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All week the kids keep coming up with new formulas – “I have an idea mom, what if we cut up apples and mix them with vinegar and clean the toilets!” Briana suggests in the morning. “I think cornstarch on fingers again!” Abigail tries.

Hey, if going green means that the kids happily clean the house, we may do this every week!

<3 Pedigreed Housewife