The Cleaning Fairy

The cleaning fairy as she's called in our house often makes an appearance. She is also known as Rachel. I recently went on a major house cleaning spree, I cleaned everything, until I finally lost speed and made Mike clean the guest bathroom (which he still has yet to do by the way). I cleaned things that have never been cleaned before (although they probably should have been). Some people have spring cleaning, me, I have once every 4 years cleaning. And I def don't think I will clean like this again for another four years. Or until we move out/into a new house, although at this rate that will be another 4 years from now so I should be ok.....

Anyway, thanks to the help of my trusty friend google and pinterest I learned some really neat tricks that came in handy that I wanted to pass along. So here are my new found cleaning wisdom tips: 

• Bar Keepers Friend, really is your friend. I can never get the soap scum off the shower doors, I've tried all different kinds of things and all the different cleaners, nothing seems to work. Thanks to the magic of google I learned that putting this on the doors really did work, I was amazed by how much it worked, so I will def be using that again and not just for cleaning pots and pans!
  
• Ammonia. That's all you need to clean your gas stove grates. Who knew? I have tried scrubbing those things to death with Brillo, I've put them in the dishwasher, and who knows what else and they never come clean. I saw a pin on pinterest that if you just put the grates in individual gallon size bags with a couple tablespoons of ammonia in each bag and soak them overnight, they'll come clean no scrubbing required. Just make sure your bags don't leak. I put mine over a pyrex dish bc they DID leak. Also it smells terrible, the ammonia, but it's worth it. I was so skeptical but it really did work and no scrubbing required so I will def be using this trick again in the future!
  
• Another neat trick I learned was that dryer sheets have many purposes. Above my microwave where the vents are and right above were all sticky, and even the magic eraser wouldn't work on that, too much gunk, I saw that if you use a dryer sheet it takes all the sticky gunk off and it worked. I never would have known that one either!
  
• For whatever reason the walls in the master bathroom were gross, something like was dripping down the side of the wall. If you ever find yourself needing to clean walls, this worked awesome, Mix 1⁄2 cup vinegar, 1 cup clear ammonia, 1⁄4 cup baking soda, and 1 gallon warm water, wear gloves and apply with a sponge and it takes off all the dirt!
  
• Our microwave really wasn't dirty, I clean it all the time but I thought this was another cool trick in case there every is anything that gets stuck on there, we certainly have things explode in the microwave and I hate cleaning it out, mostly because I have a hard time reaching it since I'm so short. All it takes is a cup of warm water, a cup of vinegar and put it in the microwave for 10 minutes and voila just wipe it out and you're good to go.
  
• Finally when in doubt, use a magic eraser! It cleans almost everything!