Carpet Cleaner Rehab

When I talked about decluttering and mentioned my carpet cleaners, I thought I had two, at most maybe three bottles of carpet cleaning related containers.  Apparently I was in denial.

This picture was taken AFTER I finished 2 bottles of carpet cleaner (Spot Shot).

Amazon

And yes I included the bottle of vinegar in my carpet cleaning arsenal.  Time for an intervention.

We bought a Bissel carpet cleaner shortly after we got Bentley.  It's similar to this one:

Amazon

And after getting a second dog, I think our carpet cleaning arsenal exploded.

So rather than get rid of the carpet cleaners (many of the bottles are half empty), I went to town on the rug in our living room!

Disclaimer: This rug sits in our living room just inside the back door to the backyard and is the only piece of carpet in the main living space outside the bedrooms.  In the middle of winter = mud haven.  The rug gets used.  A lot.  And no I didn't take pictures of the before because I was mortified.  Bad blogger.

However, since I had the opportunity to use SO many of these lovely carpet cleaners, I can also provide a mini review!

Best at getting out stains: Spot Shot or Resolve
Spot Shot works best when you have a quick spot that you need to tackle and don't want to break out the whole steam cleaner.
Resolve works well if you have a carpet cleaner to suck up the cleaner because it does foam so much, but took care of stains that the Bissel Tough Stain didn't really touch!

Best smelling: Spot Shot or Woolite Pet Oxygen
Both are clean smelling, but the Woolite smell lingers a little bit longer.

Best for steam cleaner usage: Bissel Fiber Cleansing or Vinegar
I have used the Bissel Fiber Cleansing cleaner for YEARS.  I typically go over the carpet on "Heavy Duty" cleaning, then do a water rinse pass to get the rest of the cleaner out of the carpet.  When I didn't think I had enough of this cleaner left this time, I took a note from another blog (can't remember which) and used vinegar!  I think I should have diluted the vinegar more (maybe a 50/50 mixture?) but it DEFINITELY got the carpet the cleanest (visibly at least).  The vinegar smell lingered a little bit longer, but now (about 4 days after cleaning it) I can no longer smell the vinegar.
When comparing the two, Vinegar also definitely wins in the price department, as Bissell's cleaner is a little expensive.

And if you clean up a spot with any kind of carpet cleaner, ALWAYS vacuum after the spot has dried!


Now, after my carpet cleaning frenzy, I have one bottle of Woolite left! I will not be going out to buy more carpet cleaner until this bottle is gone, because in all actuality, they all work well enough that I don't need 6 bottles of carpet cleaner, and should I need to steam clean in a pinch, I've always got vinegar in my cleaning arsenal!

Another category done!  Now which one to move onto next?

THAT drawer

Not to be confused with THAT boy ;)

Everyone has one.  THAT drawer that you are scared to open.  Scared to put your hand into for fear it might get cut or find something that REALLY doesn't belong.  Am I being a little dramatic?  Maybe.  But it was thanks to my "THAT drawer" that I decided to make a little purchase at Home Goods during my recent visit to St. Louis.

Here's the situation that necessitated an intervention:

A too small utensil holder on the counter which held about five utensils comfortably.

The utensil holder was an IKEA purchase (~$7) for my FIRST apartment, which if you read between the lines means this bad boy has been gracing my counters for about 8 years, so about 75 cents/year. He had put his time in and I believe I had gotten my money's worth out of him.

Enter my new shiny utensil holder from Home Goods!  I purchased it for $11.99 and once I was back in town, it found its new home on my counter.

You know you are getting old when you seriously get excited about making purchases like this one.

I also liked the scale of the new one much more than the old one, but thought it looked a little cramped with the knives on the counter too, so those got moved to another area of the kitchen.  #unclutteredhappiness

So now that the new holder was ready to be filled, I decided to tackle THAT drawer.  Embarrassed to put this online, but hey, I'm sharing this one like it is.

This drawer houses our can openers, measuring cups, baking items, and other "overflow" utensils. Yes that is a knife also just hanging out in the drawer - SCARY. 

On a positive note, this is probably the most prominent area for primary colors in our home.  I don't fall far from the tree when it comes to beiges and related neutrals. 

I emptied out the entire drawer, putting utensils in their new home and everything else across the counter.  I wiped out the drawer and washed anything that looked like it needed it.

I was a little shocked by some of the items in the drawer.  Do we really need FOUR of one utensil?  I agree that there are some things that are nice to have multiples of, but we really don't need four pastry brushes, scratch that, five.  So I downsized unnecessary items and started reorganizing.  Can/bottle/wine openers grouped on the left, random items in the middle and I filled in that last section with the remaining pastry brushes and wooden spoons.

Lovely organization.

I think my helpers were just as excited as I was!  Or not.  Because it was 9:30pm and they wanted to go to bed.  #happeningFridaynight

In the end, I had a small pile of about 10 things that we no longer needed from ONE drawer.  #stillwaitingforLuke'sapprovaltogetridof #Idon'tactuallydomuchcooking #nobodyisshockedbythat

I'm also happy to report that we no longer have stray knives hanging out in the drawer. Nobody was cut in the making of this post either.  Small celebration!

Time for the side-by-side comparisons!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I LOVE the new utensil holder and how much more it can hold while still looking stylish. However, I don't LOVE where the knives found a new home, so it looks like they are leasing the space for now until they can find a new place.

Another thing I didn't LOVE?  The hardwater spots on my utensils.  My mom suggested a vinegar water soak to get rid of the white grossness.  I'm trying it now and will let you know how it goes!

Another "clutter" area tackled.  

Anybody else tackled THAT drawer lately? Or does anybody get just as giddy as I do with new purchases for the home?!  #TJMaxxandHomeGoodsAddictionAnonymous  

Linking up to New Years Organizing Revolution! 

New year, New approach

Happy New Year!  I can't believe we are already in 2013.  I don't know about you, but I am ready for a new year and have been thinking recently about this whole "resolutions" thing.  I think I'm over resolutions.  There are some crazy statistics about resolutions, with 45% of people making them, but only 8% of people are successful at attaining their resolutions.  Thus, instead of making resolutions, I'm going to make a conscious effort to be more aware of what's truly important to me in 2013.  

Talking with my Aunt Alisa over Christmas, she mentioned her mantra for 2013: "Enough is Enough" and I couldn't help but agree with her.

Case in point: At the end of 2012, I spent some extra time clearing out my closet of clothing, purses and shoes that didn't fit, showed wear, or were outdated.  When I got back from the holidays, I sorted all of the clothing into Donate, Sell, and Toss piles.

A fraction of my piles of things to get rid of. 

I took the Sell pile into a couple of local consignment stores and opted for the immediate cash back option, which resulted in some decent amount of cash in my pocket (my version of decent may differ from others, but at this point, if it puts gas in my gas tank, I consider it decent!).

However, when I was at one particular store, I found myself feeling suddenly attached to some of my former belongings.  I had that "but what if I need another black bag and none that I have now will work?!" or "but what if I NEED that button up shirt I've had in my closet for 2 years and never wore?" The truth of the matter is I don't NEED any of the items. If I haven't used it in over a year and somebody else could get use or enjoyment out of my things, isn't that more rewarding?  There is no point in me having a full, overstuffed closet when somebody else could use the items I no longer need/want/use.  In addition, the time and worry I had given to something as insignificant as a shirt was simply not worth it.  It was definitely time to say Enough is Enough; I have a feeling this mantra is going to frequently find it's way into my 2013 vocabulary.

What was left in my Sell pile went straight into my Donate pile and will be going to my local American Cancer Society Discovery Shops, a great organization that functions as a upscale resale shop in order to raise money for the fight against cancer, which many of you know is near and dear to my family's heart.

Little do they know a clown car's worth of stuff will be coming to them in the near future.  When I purged my closet I DID NOT mess around.  Unfortunately I also didn't take pictures since I seized the moment with my mom and sister in town - sometimes you just have to go with the flow!  It feels AWESOME to walk into an organized, clean, simplified space that I have been keeping even more organized and clean now that everything has a home in my closet.

What's your mantra for 2013?  Are you making New Year's Resolutions? Have you ever stuck to a resolution in the past?


I'm excited for what 2013 has to offer! I have already been busy getting a few blog posts ready that I hope will be helpful to you all in 2013 and beyond as well.  Some of the topics are definitely going to be more difficult to talk about than others ::cough cough budgeting cough cough:: but many are more lighthearted and are things that can be done in a short amount of time.   I also have intel that my guest bloggers have post ideas up their sleeves, so stay tuned!  

Have a suggestion?  I'd love to hear it!  Email me at makinghousecalls12@gmail.com