Great Cleaning Product

This weekend we basically took easy since the work week was kind of hard to us. But I wanted to tell you about a great cleaning product. It's called Method. They make all kinds of cleaners, they make toilet bowl cleaner, all surface cleaner, cleaning wipes, dish detergent, laundry detergent, and even hand soap. They are natural cleaning products and come in a range of scents. My favorite being cucumber, they also have scents like grapefruit, lavendar, and clementine.

My parents use Tilex each spring to clean their outdoor plastic furniture, it's supposed to be white but they were getting it to like a light gray. The Tilex was not cutting all the dirt. I went and got the Method all purpose cleaner from my room (I was in high school at the time so I was still living at home) and on the table, which hadn't been touched yet, spritzed two or three times to cover the table, and then scrubbed a little. Suddenly there was a white table, not a gray table, a white table.

Another time my mother hung a grocery bag on the pantry door because it was wet, and the color ran from the bag onto the door. She tried Fantastic, but nothing happened. They tried another cleaner that I don't recall, and again nothing happened. I go get the Method all purpose cleaner and suddenly the spot is coming off. I am a little disappointed, as the spot did not fully come off, but it is a nice light blue now and no one really notices it.

Then recently at work, I went to ask a co-worker something and they had to look at some things on the computer to answer the question. She had some difficulty as a few months prior another co-worker was pointing something out using an open pen and marked the screen. We got to talking and she told me she had tried all the cleaners the office provided but nothing worked. The next day I brought in the Method all purpose cleaner, and once again, made what shouldn't be there dissapear. My co-worker was so surprised at how easily I took the mark of the computer monitor she started asking all kinds of questions about the cleaner I used.

I can not express how in love with this product and company I am. I dare you to try one of their products and hate it. But I can already tell you, you won't succeed at the dare. You'll love the product too much.

Check them out - http://www.methodhome.com/shop/home-cleaning. You can probably also find at least a few of their products at your local grocery store such as Meijer, as well as Lowes and Target.

what to do...

This week we really didn't do any projects, but I have been thinking about others. For instance, what to do for window treatments. In our Living Room, currently we have vertical blinds, but with two curious and protective Golden Retrievers that like looking out the window this is a little frustrating for us. Each time we want to open the blinds we have to fix almost each blind. We don't want vertical blinds because the window is so large, and the dogs would probably destroy them, same with most shades. So we've decided on curtains. However, we have not found any that we like in the stores so I've decided I would make some...now what to make.

Once upon a time, we thought about an off white with a thick band of a red on the bottom. The off white would go with the color of the walls and ceiling, the red is because that seems to be the accent color for the room and it would help hide the doggy dirt when they stick their wet noses through so they can see outside. Now I'm thinking about a light grey with the red band at the bottom. The only thing stopping me is the height the band would have to be, I'm worried it will be overwhelming even though I could probably get away with only a foot maybe foot and a half high band.

Another thing we are playing with, is giving the stones on our hearth a wet look. While wiping the grout we agreed we both liked the slightly wet look to the stones, it also darkened them up without making them too dark. However, I'm starting to think we need something other than just sealer. Before knowing that the grout did not need to be sealed we bought sealer. Then we read the premixed grout and found it does not need to be sealed so I've been testing the sealer on a scrap piece of stone. Over 10 layers of sealer on only half the stone, we still can't see a difference between the two halves and are not getting the look we want. So now I think it's time for some research to see what other options we may have to get that wet look.

On a side note, I've just purchased a tripod. So now I can take pictures of me actually working on things without worrying about reminding or asking someone else to take the picture or even having someone else around... knowing how much I work when I have the house all to myself.

Hearth is in and backsplash is up

This weekend has been busy! My Dad came over and brought his tile saw. We were finally able to get the hearth and backsplash in. There is just some finishing to be done. Yesterday we put the drywall on the frame for the hearth. Why drywall instead of cement board? Well...I oopsed when we did the ceiling for the Family Room and we purchased too many sheets of drywall. What we got though was fire rated so we used that.

Next while my Dad set up the tile saw I got busy laying out tile and chose the best looking ones for the full tiles that would be used, and the better areas of others for the partial tiles. Then my Dad got busy cutting tiles, and I started laying down the adhesive. I was taking so long at putting down the adhesive that as soon as he could, my Dad would lay down a tile. He stopped and had me put in a few just for a photo opp.

This morning he came back, since it was cold yesterday, the water in the tile saw was freezing so we stopped before we started on the backsplash. My Dad did the tile cutting, I backbuttered and put them on the wall. While we did that my boyfriend worked on grouting the hearth. So it is now done and tomorrow we will grout the kitchen.

Getting Ready To Tile, Fingers Crossed

Well, fingers crossed, this weekend we will hopefully be doing the tile for our hearth and backsplash for our kitchen. We have our fingers crossed and eyes shut tight hoping and wishing it comes true...finally!

Too much to do, it's important to keep organized

Sometimes I feel like I've bitten off more than I can chew. I have multiple hobbies and many of them aren't touched often because of my lack of time or no space to work on them. It's surprising to many people because I'm very organized at school or at work, basically outside the home I'm orgainized but at home, kind of ironically I'm rather like a slob. I get lazy and just plop things down somewhere close to where they should be instead of actually putting them away. Above you can see what the office used to look like. I've been working on finding a place for everything and putting everything in it's place. Once I'm finished I'm hoping to have a little more time for the things I would like to do instead of spending my free time looking for things I need, and things I have to do.