Posts Tagged ‘laundry’

Homemade Stain Remover

Posted on January 9th, 2012 by Tonia 5 Comments

{Alternative title: Adventures in Wifery}

Mike is packing for a business trip to California- and shoot!– we discovered that he somehow had a colorful New Years cocktail spilled on his favorite dress shirt.

“Can you get it out for me?”

“I’ll try, honey…”

These things are tricky when you have to stick to biodegradable products…but wait! That magical substance called baking soda is here to the rescue again. There is nothing it can’t do. It’s the Chuck Norris of household supplies.

Unfortunately, Mike’s lovely wife didn’t notice the stain before throwing the shirt in the wash a few days ago…so now the stain, though faded significantly, has been set into the shirt. I’m sure that baking soda will be able to handle the situation, though. I hope. I pray. Please.

Can you even see the stain?? It’s not very obvious, but it’s there. Like the punch-line to one of my father-in-law’s puns.

Here we go. Mix 1/4 of a cup of baking soda and enough hydrogen peroxide to make a paste. Spread onto the stained area, like cake frosting. Use fingers to rub into the fabric for several minutes.

Soak the garment in very cold water, agitating occasionally.

Rinse in cold water to get out any baking soda that might still be hanging on. Hang to dry, smoothing out the wrinkles.

BOOYA!!

Stain is history, and my reputation as Pretty Good Wife is intact.

dormitorio nuevo

Posted on November 21st, 2011 by Tonia 3 Comments

In the winter, when our garden is dead and the beach is unappealing and it’s too damn cold out for anything other than pond hockey, we turn our attention from the outdoors to the indoors.

Floors get a whole summer of dirt mopped off them, windows get washed, and the toothbrush comes out for all the baseboards. It’s nice for the place to be spic-and-span since we have to be in here a lot for the next five months.

This weekend, Mike and I found a lightly used bedroom set on Craigslist for a great price. It’s solid maple, and happens to be the same set that Mike’s parents have in their guest bedroom, which we annoyingly bug them to give to us every time we’re there and they annoyingly refuse every time. 😉

Currently our bedroom houses a box-spring with a mattress on top…….and that’s all. So obviously, we had to get this bedroom set. Oh, to have a dresser {we have somewhere to put our clothes!}, a bedside table {yay, our lamp doesn’t have to sit on the floor anymore!}, a bed {we’re looking less like a dorm room and more like a real grown-up bedroom!}, and a mirror {oh god, is that what I look like?!} Things are shaping up around here.

In order to have some clean clothes to put away in the new dresser, I had to go on an intense laundry-doing mission. Someone was pretty stoked about all the warm laundry coming out of the dryer and being piled on the bed…

I do declare, here’s nothing more cozy than tidying up, nesting, and decorating your home for the holidays.

Line Drying

Posted on June 15th, 2011 by Tonia 5 Comments

I may have mentioned before that laundry is my most despised house chore.

But that was before I had a clothesline outside. Mike set this baby up yesterday, and now I can stand out in the sunshine and watch the hummingbirds fight over the feeder while I hang clothes up to dry.

Ok, this ain’t so bad.

Are you line-drying your clothes this summer? It’s such an easy and wonderful way to reduce your energy use, by not running the dryer. And it’s downright pleasant.

If you don’t already have a clothes-line, you can head to your hardware store and pick up two pulleys and a length of good nylon rope {make sure to get double the length you need for it to reach from one end to the other of wherever you’re hanging it}. The total cost will probably be around $40, but it depends on how much rope you get {I got 50′ for a 25′ line}.

Fasten the pulleys to a tree, the side of the house, or any other sturdy object at either end of the line. Loop the rope through the pulleys and tie the ends together with a knot that allows you to release it and tighten it later on, because over time the rope will stretch from the weight of the clothes. We used a figure-eight-knot, but there might be better ones {I had to rack the old rock-climber brain, but didn’t really come up with anything.} You want the rope-loop to be taught, not hanging loose, but not so tight that it won’t give when you hang clothes on it {or you’ll risk busting the pulleys!}

Start hanging your clothes on the line with the knot right next to the pulley closest to you, and push the line away from you as you go. When the knot reaches the other pulley, you’re done. I got a whole load on my 25′ line. It was sunny out, so they dried in just a couple hours!

Extra awesome bonus of line-drying clothes: they smell great after they’re dry, like fresh air and sunshine.