Like MAGIC!

If you know me well, you know I am a clean freak, organizational-holic, and probably an undiagnosed OCDish kind of gal.

After 20 years in the same house, with no remodels no upgrades, I was getting really annoyed with all the grunginess of my very lived-in home. My sofa cushions are all ripped up, so I use blankets to cover over them. My creme colored carpets are so stained that I got rugs to put over them.

But my bathrooms.. they are a different story! We have very hard water where I live so hard water stains my bathtub and sinks to the point where scrubbing it to death will not remove them. I still could not stand looking at them even after I cleaned and scrubbed!

But no more!

My sink used to look like this...

Disgusting ain't it?

... to now this!

What did I do?

Soaked towels

with this...

 Vinegar is the key ingredient.. actually the only ingredient I used to get rid of those yucky stains.

And I used a lot (you can see I used over half of this huge container for 5 sinks.)

Here's the scoop:
 - First dry the area you are covering. No water anywhere.
- Soak a rag (I used paper towels) in 100% vinegar and lay them around the areas that have the hard water stains.
 - Let it sit for at least one hour. Depending on how old your stains are you might want it to sit for awhile. Since mine were 20 years old I let it sit for 3 hours but in my down stairs bathroom I let it sit overnight. The longer it sits; the easier the stains come off.
- After a few hours, remove the towels/rag and you can use a sponge to scrub away the stain easily.
- That's it!
Like MAGIC!

Huge thanks go to Ron Wong who posted the video on FB:
http://ziggabytes.com/vids/video/the-simple-way-to-remove-hard-water-deposits-on-your-faucets-and-sinks-im-so-glad-i-learned-this/

Thank you to Crouton Crackerjacks:

My next project: How to get rid of ugly black grout on my bathtub and kitchen sink without having to re-grout it.. if you have any ideas please comment below!

Out with the Old; In with the New

19 years ago when we got married, my parents gifted us with these two precious household items.

But a few years ago I started to notice these machines did not run like it used to:
- The dryer broke down 2-3 times; it would run but there was no heat; my husband would fix it but it took twice as long to dry.
- The washer made very loud sounds especially when it was filling up with water; it was so loud that you could hear it from inside the house upstairs!
- Lastly my whites didn't look white after a washing and I felt that the clothes just swished around in water and not getting any cleaner.

So we researched and hunted for a new washer and dryer. After taking to numerous people and checking out the appliance stores, we narrowed it down to what we wanted.

That was a year ago. And FINALLY we got our new set!

We wanted to get a good price for it so we waited for them to go on sale. But whenever it was they were either back ordered or we waited too long and the sale passed or the sale price wasn't low enough etc..

Finally I gave in and told Matthew to just BUY IT!

The girls were so excited to have a new entertainment system!

It takes very little to entertain themselves!

New, Big and 600CFM!

So our old microwave died... I was reheating up a dish for two minutes and it was still cold when I took it out... (one of many appliances that we will probably be replacing this new year! Sigh...I guess it's that time.)

So my husband researched what was the best available that had a strong fan. Yes... I needed a strong fan that would not smell up my whole house when I cook! Most microwave/fan combos are 300-400 CFM (cubic feet per minute) or the amount of air the fan is pushing. Our previous fan was probably 300 CFM. A wimpy little thing!

After reading reviews and checking out Consumer Reports, we went to good ol' Sears and got us this bad boy!

The Kenmore Elite 30" Microhood Combination

We were so thankful that our friend, Greg, came and helped Matthew install this very heavy appliance. Of course we also bought him a nice dinner and I did his laundry (he was back in the States for business).

This microwave has an extra wide cavity since the positioning of the controls were on the bottom instead of on the side.

Unfortunately it was deeper than we expected but I was willing to sacrifice that with.. as Tim the Tool Man Taylor says... MORE POWER!  This bad boy has 600CFM ventilation power (which is twice as much as our previous one!)

It also has duel swing doors that you can open on the left or the right!

The tray glides (moves back and forth) instead of spinning a turntable tray. This maximizes the usable space within the microwave.

Check out the happy and proud faces of a job well-done! It took them three hours... Greg finally left our house at midnight to go back to his hotel!

THANK YOU Greg!!

It's That Time

This year it'll be 17 years that we'll be in our house. Due to all our wear and tear, it's time for some replacements for various items in our house. All this was done this past month.

First is our garbage can. I've had this Rubbermaid beauty for over 10+ years. It did it's job very well.
But after seeing one of these shiny gems at a friend's house? Wow... I want one of those! It's a SimpleHuman garbage can.

Not only does it close silently, holds a ton more than my old one and is fingerprint-proof, it has a section for recycling (on the right). Now if it had a section for compost, it would be THE perfect can!

The second thing to replace was plumbing related. We found out one of our bathroom sinks was leaking. The pipes were cracking. We replaced the pipes in all of the sinks in the house and found out that we had actually had five leaks!

Our plumber friend replaced the greenish thin cheap piping with shiny strong LEED certified ones.

We also replaced the plastic values with metal ones that turn off with just a quarter turn. Now I know how to turn the water off! I'm learning new things everyday!

Our third piece was our garage door. The garage door cable became off-line so it needed immediate attention. It was loud and scary when I tried to close it. Thankfully our garage door man came right over to fix it.

Notice the slant?

Now to the Piece De-reisistance! My kitchen sink faucet was also leaking so we replaced it with this Price Pfister Elevate. This fancy faucet can go up a few more inches when needed. And I so need it for washing my pots. Plus as an added bonus, we had a water filter installed so we can have running filtered water instead of filling my Brita filter every day.

Old faucet with attached Brita filter

New faucet with soap dispenser and filtered water spigot

New faucet with additional 3 inch extended height!

Next is to get the tile recaulked to get rid of the ugly black stains on the grout!

Now I would love a bay window in the kitchen but we'll need to change the counter tops, sink and cabinets. Something I would love and desire of course.. but one thing at a time.

ONGOING CONTEST... remember I will enter your name with each comment you post on anything I've written through February 9 . Random winner will receive a BIG prize!

We Got It!

A Follow-Up from the blog post:  Because of the TV

We got a cool 40" flat screen TV. It's a Samsung LED. It was so light. Our old TV was probably twice as heavy and twice as small.

Matthew originally purchased a Toshiba 40" LED at Costco. But Matthew's brother surprised us with this Samsung one he got for him as a surprise birthday gift for him. (Thanks Dai! We love it!)

Matthew was so excited to watch his favorite TV show on Sunday (check out what that was below).

So all our new furniture is all set in the house.

Next to tackle...closet organizers for all the closets!

Because of the TV...

After 16 years, our TV is dying. This is our spare TV that was upstairs in the loft. (Our original Sony 27" that was downstairs died awhile ago.) It is a Sanyo 21". There is a loud buzzing noise that goes on while the TV is on. There is nothing wrong with the picture so we just turn up the volume so it overrides the buzzing noise. Sometimes we get so used to it we don't notice the buzzing. But it's still there.

So we've been looking at new TVs. And they sure have become real fancy these days: flat, thin, rectangular and real colorful and bright! We've never had a TV bigger than 27". Apparently that's considered tiny these days.

But before we get a TV we need to make room for a larger than 27" TV. You see, our furniture currently cannot accommodate a TV larger than 32".

When we first moved into the house , our family room was quite cozy and large enough for the two of us.

We furnished it with a nice L-shaped sofa, Matthew's stereo system, a coffee table and a nice Crate & Barrel TV stand (both wedding gifts) and our 27" Sony TV.

Then I got into scrapbooking and I needed a place for all of this:

So we got nice IKEA shelves to store all of my albums, ...

(Sorry for the picture.. it was the only one I could find that shows how the shelves looked.)

... our old traditional photo albums...

... and our DVD collection.

But that original TV space was not large enough to fit a new 'large' TV so we had to get rid of all of those shelves.

We headed to good ol' IKEA.. and got literally a ton of stuff. It took us 4 trips to get all that we needed to build a new entertainment /storage unit in the family room. Of course, everything from IKEA comes in pieces.

We also replaced some bookshelves upstairs, added a shelf unit in the loft...

 ...and under the stairs ...

Before it was my homeschool reading corner...

Now it's storage for Hannah's toys.

 ...and above the new desk in the office.

This is the finished product in the family room...our current TV looks so little in that space.

Now to find the perfect TV... what do you all suggest?