Getting My House Ready to Sell–Tips and Tricks

We have been on the market now for almost 3 weeks and we have had 6 showings.  After every showing, we receive feedback via email.  There is an 8 question multiple choice form the realtors fill out that gives us an indication of how the house showed, if the buyer is really a potential buyer, and if there is anything we can do to improve our home.  Every response has been excellent.  Our house shows perfectly –from curb appeal to cleanliness.  The only problem is the schools and the neighborhood.  Big inner city school system is not what most home buyers are looking for.  But we’re hopeful that the right buyer will come by and love our home and buy it up quickly.  We’ve been in the top three for 2 different showings, so I’m sure it won’t be too long now.  Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I’d love to show you some of my little tips and tricks on how I keep my house show-ready or at least easy to get show-ready in no time at all. It’s things that I will keep doing whenever we move to our new home, since it leaves your home spotless and beautiful in just a few quick steps.  Who doesn’t want that?

Trash

No one wants to see your dirty trash when they look through your home.  I’ve come up with some quick tips for keeping our trash tamed.

I have put all of my little trashcans from the bedrooms and bathrooms in the basement crawlspace.  I’ve always been bad at emptying those things on a regular basis anyway, so I got rid of them for showings.  Now, I just hang a Kroger bag over the handle.  When the showing comes, I take the bags with me and either throw them out in the outdoor trashcan or throw them in the van to bring back later.

My recycling days are on hold for now.  I used to hang a trash bag in my laundry room (which is right off of my kitchen) to hold our recycling trash.  We don’t have to sort our recyclables when we take them to the recycling dumpster.  Everything goes in the same dumpster, which makes it really easy on me.  But, now that I have to keep my rooms clean, I stopped recycling.  That’s one last bag I have to worry about grabbing before a showing, and one less hook I need to have on my laundry room wall.  I can’t wait to start recycling again. 

Laundry

No one wants to see your dirty laundry when they look through your home.

On a regular basis, I keep two laundry baskets on my closet floor (one for darks and one for lights) and one in my son’s room.  On a showing day, I will grab those three baskets and put them in the back of my van.  I’ll then make sure to vacuum the floor where the baskets were to get the marks off the floor.

The other bit of laundry we have is towels.  On my master bathroom door, we have three hooks over the door with three towels hanging there.  I take those down (hooks and all) and plop them in a wicker hamper that is slightly hidden beside my dresser.  After the showing, I put them back up to make sure they don’t get mildewy

This picture reminds me that I also run through the bedrooms and make sure all the dresser drawers are completely shut before we leave. I think I have a disease.  I leave dresser drawers open just a little all the time. 

Makeup and Bathroom supplies

No one wants to see your hairbrush, makeup, or shaving cream when they’re trying to picture themselves in your space.

I have a big problem with having too much STUFF.  One area where this is evident is my makeup and hair supplies.  Who knows why I need to have so much to choose from, especially since I use the same few items every day.  Getting my toiletries wrangled was probably my most rewarding cleaning/de-cluttering project in this whole house-selling adventure. 

I now have a basket under each sink for my daily items and figured out a way to store the rest neatly.  I organized and de-cluttered my hair stuff (like bobby pins, ponytail holders and clips) and organized my machines (like flat iron, hair dryer and hot rollers)  Thanks Pinterest!

My makeup was a bit trickier for me.  Included in my ‘makeup’ was my lotion, deodorant, and many makeup supplies.  They used to sit on my dresser, but after getting rid of some of my clothes (we donated a LOT last month) I ended up having a free drawer in my dresser.  I put my supplies in little baskets and they all fit neatly into that one drawer.  Now, I can take them out when I need them and hide them away when I’m done.  It makes me just a little giddy each time I hide my baskets away.  I really do love being organized.

Finishing Touches

I change out the bathroom and kitchen towels for ‘show towels’.  I bought two kitchen and three bathroom hand towels that look new and fluffy.  It cost me about $10 for all of them.  I put them under the sinks or in a cupboard in between showings, and my family knows they are not to use the new towels for their hands.  Ever.

Before each showing, I make sure I have one or two nice bouquets of flowers in my kitchen.  I buy the $5 bouquet from Kroger.  These things last weeks if you take care of them.  I re-clip the ends after a few days and put them in fresh water.  I may crush up an aspirin someday too.  My mother says it keeps flowers living longer.

One of my friends recommended baking some cookies before a showing so your house smells like freshly baked cookies.  I did that for the first showing, but now I find that it’s too much work for me to do that every time.  Instead, I leave out a bowl of candy.  So far it has been jelly beans (thanks Easter candy sales!)

I leave every single light on in my house (downstairs) when I leave for a showing.  I also open all the blinds and let as much light in as I possibly can.  Besides the obvious reason for leaving all the lights on (getting it as bright as I can in here), I have another reason for leaving the lights on.  All the lights in the living room are on a remote control switch, and I don’t want there to be any confusion trying to get the lights on when they come in the house.  

Another reason I leave all the lights on is to show off my under-cabinet-lighting in my kitchen. If they don’t look, they might not know that it’s there. (oh, and we’ve fixed the dangling cord, so it doesn’t dangle anymore)

When everything has a place, cleaning up before a showing goes quickly and smoothly.  It doesn’t stay clean and spotless every day, but it can get clean and spotless in just a few hours (including mopping the floors) when a showing is scheduled. I just hope someone makes an offer soon.  I’m noticing the diligence with which I used to keep the place clean is starting to wear off.  If I go 4 days without a showing, it may take a bit longer to get it back into tip-top shape, but it’s still doable. 

What other tips do you have for keeping your house ‘show-ready’?  Do you live in a house that is always ‘show-ready’? 

Getting My House Ready to Sell–Toys

If you have at least one child in your house, chances are you have enough toys to entertain 10 children at one time. At least that’s how it is in our house. Let me show you some shameful before photos I dug up from my files to show you just how bad it is in our house when it comes to toys:

There are a LOT of toys. Because we have so much space in the living room, we tend to fill it up with a lot of stuff. The biggest fear I had going into this house selling adventure was “what do we do with our toys!?” I couldn’t see how I was going to make it so that Jack could keep his toys, and we could stage this house for selling. Being at home all day, every day makes it impossible to keep a house clean. Toys are out as soon as the boy gets up in the morning. My challenge was to figure out a way to be a stay-at-home-family but not get the place messy.

In order to be ready to show our house in a moment’s notice, we consolidated, stored, and donated a LOT of toys. Here is what we were left with at the end of the day.

I can grab this box with all the little boxes inside of it and easily take them to the basement crawl space or even to the back of the van when we leave the house. Jack knows where everything is, and he now knows that if he gets something out, the last toy’s he played with need to be returned. It doesn’t always happen like this, but it does help.

We also have this ‘corner’ of the room with toys. It is also easily grab-able and stored in the basement at a moment’s notice.

His big trucks have been parked in the room along various walls at different times, but I finally consolidated them into one ‘garage’. Having just redone our floors, our closet hasn’t yet gotten filled with random things, so I had the space to park the big machines in there. Jack thinks it’s fun to park them in their garage.

I’ve had to do some hard weeding out of toys. Jack loves trains. He loves his Geo Trax that he’s gotten from his cousins, but we decided to box them up and store them in the basement for now. I think they may make a few appearances before we move out of here, but they’re not out ALL.THE.TIME like they used to be. There are two other train/car tracks that are still out for him to play with, but they fit in smaller boxes, so they’re allowed to be up here.

I have to admit that baby toys take up MUCH MORE space than toddler toys. Matchbox cars and planes can be put in a small plastic bin. However, a bouncer, swing, baby gym and whatever this is called: take up much more space in a home. I’m not sure what I would have done if I had to deal with these toys in my home. (For now, they’re in our basement crawl space)

There are other things we’ve done in our living room to make it bigger, cleaner, and nicer, but those are not so much toy-focused as they are furniture removal. I’ll do a separate post on those whenever we finish staging our living room. Once the carpet is done upstairs (I’m typing this while the carpet guy is doing our carpet today), I’ll be able to get more ‘after’ photos from our rooms upstairs as well. We’re moving right along on this house selling adventure! Thanks for joining me on my journey.

Getting My House Ready to Sell–The Kitchen

Well, Folks.  I’ve been absent again from blogging.  This time I have a VERY good excuse.  We’re getting our house ready to sell!  We haven’t liked where we are living for years, so this was a long time coming.  We can now move away from this house and neighborhood without fear of losing money in the deal.

There’s just one problem.  We I have a lot of junk.  I mean A LOT!  I’d like to blame Jack and all his toys, but really it’s all me.  It’s all stuff that I have acquired over the years and haven’t been able to let go of.  Really, do I need to keep the dozen Skintimate shaving gel samples I got 12 years ago from a school P.E. kit?  If I haven’t used them by now, I need to get rid of them!

Much of my cleaning out so far has been just that.  Getting stuff out of my house that has no purpose.  The Goodwill donation site guy is going to know me by name soon.  I went twice in one day, because I had so much stuff and couldn’t fit it in one load.  (and I drive a minivan, people!!)

While I’m cleaning out and making our house market-ready, I have learned a few tricks.  I thought I’d share them with you.  I can’t say yet if these tricks work for selling a house or are even any good, but I can say that they have made a huge difference in keeping my house clean so far.  (once you look past all the boxes of course)

Let’s start with the kitchen.  Here is a before picture of my kitchen.  Aye-yai-yai!!

This picture actually came from last summer.  But fear not, this is how awful my kitchen looks on a daily basis.  When I have company, it looks a bit better than this, but there’s still a lot of stuff on my counters that I’ve had to deal with.  Let’s talk about what I’ve done so far.

Cutting boards – you can’t really see them in the before photo, but they’re back in the corner, on the counter, to the left of the Cuisinart.  I finally got those off my counters and into a cupboard above my (broken) microwave.  I had to clean out some stuff from that cupboard that I wasn’t using, but it freed up an entire cupboard for me to use.  My mom took the baker, and some pottery that hadn’t been used in 6 years.  (Sorry mom, since you bought some of those for me!)

Recipe boxes – My pretty recipe boxes that were sitting on my counter to the left of the stove (the before picture was taken before I covered them with pretty paper) also got put up in that same cupboard above the microwave.

Tool caddy – I had two big/FULL kitchen tool caddy’s on my counters.  I use just about every gadget in those caddies too.  So instead of getting rid of it all, I put my most used tools in a drawer, left a few big spatulas and a whisk in the pretty crock, then loaded everything else that comes out every once in a while into a canvas ‘box’ that sits in my pantry.  It’s really inconvenient to have to dig through the box to find the can opener, but it makes my counters MUCH neater, so I can live with it until we move.  I put my unused tool caddy in storage.  I’ll be bringing it back out when we move!

Food processer and Dutch oven – I am fortunate enough to own a BIG Cuisinart food processor and (since this Christmas) a HEAVY Dutch oven.  I love them both, and use them pretty regularly.  Up until this move, they’ve been sitting on the counter or stovetop full time.  I moved them both to my pots and pans cupboard after weeding out pans that I don’t use anymore.  (a big ‘spaghetti pot’ as we call it usually sits inside the Dutch oven, but it’s being used right now)

baking canisters – I bake pretty often.  Well, maybe I should say I use baking ingredients (flour, sugar, brown sugar) often.  I make bread, desserts, and I use sugar in our oatmeal most mornings.  But they were ‘clutter’ on the counter, so I had to figure out a way to get them out of there.  I ended up putting them in the pantry.  It’s pretty convenient that we just redid our floors, and I had to clean out the pantry completely during that process.  My pantry was pretty organized when I started this kitchen clean up, so I had extra space to fill up in the big pantry. 

Fridge - I have a lot of pictures on my fridge.  Every time I clean it off, I think I’m not going to clutter it up again,  but it always ends up cluttered.  This time I took off ALL the magnets and put them in a Ziplock bag to be brought out again once we move.  I also had to clean off the top of the fridge.  That happened when we redid our floors.  I had recently cleaned out all the medicine from the cupboard next to the stove (don’t they say NOT to put medicines next to the stove???) and put the container turn-about in there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Island organized – I have no pictures for now, but trust me when I say that I can make my island clear of clutter.  I have a mail center now that collets the mail, receipts, notepads, and random paper clutter.  It sits in the middle of the island and can be taken with us when we have showings. I just haven’t taken a picture of it yet.

So do you want to know what my kitchen looks like now?  Here is a (bad) photo of what it looks like when we’re on top of our game and ready to show. (I’ll have to do something with the loaf of bread, but for now, it stays there).  I purchased some “display” towels that will be hung when we go out for a showing. 

Let’s see the dramatic before and after of this one again!

I’m pretty proud of my cleaning and decluttering accomplishment.  This seemed like an insurmountable task!  I’m glad I have at least ONE room in my house ready to go!

As for the next posts on how I’m organizing other spaces in my house, I may be lacking with the ‘before’ pictures.  I’m not upset about that (since it means I don’t have to show you how BAD it all was), but it would have helped with the "wow factor” when you see how I’ve organized some other spaces. 

Until next time!

Time For My Bi-Annual Junk Drawer Cleaning

It’s amazing to me that I let something get so messy and leave it so messy for YEARS.  Who does that???  Almost two years ago I wrote a post about how I cleaned my junk drawer.  In that post, I mentioned how I had cleaned it out a few years before, but that it had gotten out of hand over time.  So, I have to assume that every two years I will clean out this junk drawer.  At least It gets cleaned.  Eventually.

Here is the before THIS time:

I think I see the trays in there from last time I organized.

After cleaning everything out and throwing a lot away, here is the after photo:

I think it’s even better than the after photo from last year time.  The two jars are what I love the most.  One jar holds twist ties and the other holds gumbands.  Raise your hand if you know what gumbands are!  (put your hand down, Mom.  I KNOW you do!)

I know you come here for riveting posts. Glad I could provide for you. 

Foto Friday–Orange

Oops, I missed last week. I’m sure I’m the only one who noticed, but I’m still sorry about it.

This week’s theme is Orange.  I walked around my house and found orange things to take pictures of, since our leaves turn yellow in our backyard, and I’m without a vehicle to even go out and look for orange.

So here they are, unedited and simple. 

This is Jack’s new dump truck.  You can tell that it’s not actually NEW.  It’s just new to him.  His cousins played with this truck 10 years ago, my sister and I played with it 30 some years ago, and my dad played with it (its original owner) 60 years ago.  Like most hand-me down toys, Jack broke it within a week –I’m not sure how these toys can last years and years, but then when they get to Jack, they break or get lost in 2 days.  *sigh* Anyway, Rick fixed it and it’s like ‘new’ again.  Maybe Jack’s kids will play with it someday.

This pumpkin is new to me.  I just bought it from a craft fair last weekend.  I never go to craft fairs, and when I do, I rarely buy anything for myself, but this weekend I went a bit crazy.  It didn’t help that my best friend’s mom made it and I love her like my own mother, so I HAD to buy it. 

Buying this pumpkin was life changing for me.  Really.  When I got home, I realized I had nowhere to put it.  Every surface in my home is full of clutter.  So, in trying to find a spot for my new –and only- fall decoration, I de-cluttered my home.  I mean REALLY de-cluttered. Let’s just say that this dry sink was unable to have a big pumpkin sitting in it like this last week. In fact, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen the inside of the sink like this in 5 years! Mostly I  just de-cluttered my kitchen, but MAN does it feel good!!  Maybe I’ll blog about it someday.  I didn’t take any ‘before’ pictures, but I can pull up just about any picture in my files and call it a before. 

Have a great weekend!

I Can Clean!

The other day I was going into my laundry room to start a load of laundry.  I love that it’s on the first floor, but I hate that it’s right off the kitchen and where everyone can see it if the door is left open.

WARNING!!!  Here is a picture of what my laundry room looked like this day.  It was no worse than any other day before – that’s the problem.  It’s a MESS!!!!!!

(The door is open as far as it will go because of *stuff* cluttered behind the door.)

I was so annoyed with how cluttered it was that I couldn’t even do that load of laundry.  I spent the next hour or so organizing the mess.  I brought in a kitchen chair and went through all the stuff on the shelf – I had no idea what was up there!  I went through all the hangers and hunting gear and found a place for it all.  I sorted all the *crap* that was on the dryer keeping me from easily reaching the controls.

I went to Big Lots on a big sale day (everything in the store was 20% off) and bought some clear tubs. I cam aggravated because I can’t find my label maker anywhere, and I desperately want to label my tubs!  I can be such a nerd when it comes to labels.  I love them!

So here it is, the organized laundry room.  I have a place for everything and everything is in its place! And can you see?  The door is completely open! Since this day, I’ve added hooks on the wall and started using ‘vertical space’.  I use this room for laundry, recycling, and extra pantry storage (just my 25lb container of flour). 

Maybe I’ll get really bright paper and put big colorful labels on the tub to make it cuter.  It’s pretty white in there, isn’t it?

Anyway, I just wanted to prove to my husband, mom, and family (and close friends) that I can actually clean.  I know how.  I just don’t like doing it.

My Cloth Diaper Fix

I’ve mentioned before that I use cloth diapers, right?

I love using cloth diapers.  We bought one brand, lots of them, and never looked back.  I love how easy they are to use and how cost saving they are.  Most of all I love how there are never poop leaks.  I can remember two or three poop leaks he’s had in 2 years.  Seriously!  I love them.

There are two things though, that I don’t love about them. 

1.  The brand I chose only came in solid colors.  No cute prints.  I love seeing all the cute prints available in cloth diapers on my message boards.  They’re amazing!  So many cute designs!!  I could go broke getting all the ones I love. 

2.  The Velcro on these diapers is starting to go bad.  I’ve caught a diaper falling off more than once in the past month, and the closures catch on his pants all the time.  I’m getting kind of annoyed with my choice of Velcro over snaps.  (Hindsight is 20/20) 

Here is what my Velcro tabs look like after two years of use and no maintenance -

 

They’re full of lint, strings, and fuzz.  They just don’t work anymore.  I was thinking about buying some new diapers with snaps and building up a new set.  BUT…that costs money, and if I can help it, I don’t want to spend any.  So, I figured out that I could probably clean out the tabs and they might work like new again. 

Here’s what I did.  One afternoon, after a load of diapers came out of the dryer, I sat and pulled out every last string, fuzz and lint from each tab.  My fingers HURT at the end of that afternoon!  I accumulated quite a lot of lint.

After I cleaned out the tabs, they worked like new!!!!!  Go figure!  Anyone else would probably already be cleaning out the Velcro tabs after every few washes, but not me!  I like don’t think of things like that.  Here’s a look at the same tabs from above after I cleaned them out.

 

 

Much better, eh?  I love it!  I have to clean them out every so often, but it surely beats buying new diapers! 

My advice to anyone considering cloth diapers -

Go with snaps.  I thought it was going to be hard to get a good ‘seal’, and that the baby would be too wiggly to do snaps, but I see in the end that they probably would last longer than Velcro tabs and I’ve been told they fit just as well as Velcro diapers.

Or clean out your Velcro tabs more often than I do.  Whatever.

 

 

 

What Does YOUR Kitchen Junk Drawer Look Like?

No one likes to admit what their junk drawer looks like.  I know I don’t!  The only redeeming thing about this photo is that you can tell that at one time, it  was organized.  I did take time a few years (yes, YEARS) ago to clean it out and organize it with cute little baskets.  But, time has wrecked it.  And I’m getting annoyed with it.  So I cleaned it!

I dumped out the contents all over my family room floor while Jack was napping.  I put everything in need little organized piles, so I knew what I was dealing with. 

Then Jack woke up.  It made organizing a little challenging, but we managed to get it done with minimal stress.

Let’s take a look at what we found, shall we?

A million and one bag clips (I thought I didn’t have), some post–its and a contact case: 

 

Some wipes from restaurants that my husband feels the need to save and some guitar picks.  LOTS of guitar picks:

  

Someone gave me 30 packs of gum on my 30th birthday (almost 3 years ago) and, since I don’t chew gum often, I still have a LOT left.  And pens, pens and MORE pens!  I had no idea there were so many in this one drawer!!

But I’m happy to report that the drawer got organized, stuff got thrown away, other stuff got put away to their proper home,  and Boozle didn’t choke on any of the many small bolts and screws. 

Awwwww….I feel much better now.

(I hope you can tell a difference.  I can certainly FEEL a difference!)

Becoming Crunchy

If you’ve been with me since the beginning of this blog (Hi Mom!), you’ll remember me mentioning that I was called Crunchy by a friend.  That was the first time I’d ever heard the term, but I loved it from the second she said it.  It’s like a cool way to say “you’re so Granola!”  Okay, maybe there isn’t a cool way to say that. 

Anyway, I loved the term, and decided to use it whenever I could.  Then I found out that she wasn’t the only one who knew that word.  There’s a blog I found called “Adventures of a Somewhat Crunchy Mama”  I don’t remember how I found her blog, but once I read her title, I HAD to keep coming back.  It’s the best title for a blog, ever! 

Recently, she has been doing a series called “31 Days to a somewhat Crunchy YOU.” She has been giving us tips each day on how to be a little greener.  Now, I have to admit that I’m crunchy more for the ‘saving tons of money’ aspect  than the ‘let’s save the planet’ aspect.  But I’m not sure it really matters in the end.  It’s still doing our part to be a little healthier for ourselves and our environment, no matter what your reasons. 

Today, she has asked us to share our recipes for homemade cleaning products.  I have to admit that I don’t have any recipes for homemade cleaning products. I won a sample of someone’s homemade laundry soap from someone’s blog last month, but have yet to receive it.  So I’ve never even tried homemade cleaning products!  But, never fear, my friend Heather has decided to ‘go crunchy’ and recently found a great resource for making your own natural cleaning products.  The book is The Naturally Clean Home, and she shared two recipes for dishwasher soap to her friends on her Facebook page the other day.  Being the good friend I am, I ripped it off her page and am posting it here!  At least I’m giving her total credit.  Maybe some day I’ll try this.

Easy dishwasher soap recipe:

2 cups of Washing Soda, 1 cup of Borax, and 1 cup of Baking Soda. (All items can be purchased at your local grocery store).

Mix ingredients together and put in a container and use 2 Tbsp per load. If you have too much residue build up, use 1 1/2 Tbsp.

A scented recipe:

2 cups Washing Soda, 2 cups Borax, and 20 drops of lavender essential oil (make sure it's concentrated, not scented massage oil). You could use any scent you like, i.e.. grapefruit, orange, etc. Same storage and usage directions as recipe above.

If you’re interested in finding other recipes for cleaning products, go to Adventures of  a Somewhat Crunchy Mama.  You can also go through some of her recent posts to find out what other ways you can save a buck and/or save the planet. 

Not-So-Much

I love being a mom.  I love being a wife.  I love cooking.  I love baking.  These things were not always loves of mine.  The first two obviously came with certain life changing events.  The last two have grown over time.  I love finding recipes and creating delicious meals for my husband and I to enjoy when he comes home from work.  I love baking cakes, brownies, and cookies to have on hand for dessert.  Perhaps this is why I'm not losing any weight.  That's another topic for another day.

With all of these loves come 'not-so-much' moments.  For example, when Jack throws his food off of his high chair, refuses to sleep in his crib by himself, or removes every last item from the lower kitchen drawers, I think "not-so-much!"  When my husband wants to work on the computer in the evenings, watch some weird PBS show, or go to bed right after dinner, I think "not-so-much!"  *For the record, I do enjoy PBS*

It's the not-so-much moments of cooking that have me down recently.  I meal plan, grocery shop every week, and plan yummy -and sometimes healthy- dinners for us throughout the week.  But you know what comes along with the fun cooking?  A crabby baby who doesn't want you to do anything but hold and play with him when you need to get dinner ready.  A kitchen sink that is overflowing with dirty dishes on one side and clean dishes on the other.  A dishwasher that can't be emptied unless the boy is strapped in his high chair, thus keeping his hands out of the clean/dirty/sharp dishes.  Plates, cups and napkins from lunch that haven't been red up (I've got PA in my blood, sorry), because running after Jack is more demanding than those dishes. 

Sometimes, when I look around the kitchen, I feel very defeated.  It is never ending.  A wife and mother's job literally never ends.  I try to think what it would have been like to live in the early 1900's as a wife and mother.  Then I become very thankful for my dishwasher, paper towels, and dish soap.  I do love my life, but sometimes....Not-So-Much!

Random Cleaning Tips

This week has a theme!  We were asked to submit our cleaning tips this week.  Now, my family will laugh when I say I do have some cleaning tips, but really, I do!  I may not keep the cleanest house, but here are a few random tips I've used to make things just a little cleaner in my little world. 

Let me start by saying I use cloth diapers.  And because I use cloth diapers, I use flushable diaper liners.  They're what keeps me going in my cloth diaper endeavor!  Here is how I make dealing with a poopy cloth diaper just a little less messy  When I change my son's dirty diaper, I put the dirty liner in a little basket I keep by the changing station. After I put it in the basket, I use the antibacterial hand sanitizer on my hands.  When we're done with the diaper change, I say "let's go put your poopy in the potty!"   We walk to the bathroom and watch the poop go down the potty, sometimes saying "bye-bye poopies!" (meaning I say it, because my son is only 9 months old)  I have only had to touch the liner once, I've cleaned my hands quickly, and I didn't have to move his changing table to the bathroom!  (And just maybe I'm getting him used to the fact that poopy goes in the potty, so potty training will go quickly!) 

When I made this recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake Balls, I knew it was going to get messy.  I was going to have to mix crumbled cake with frosting.  Luckily, I knew my hubby had a box of disposable, vinyl gloves in the garage.  I grabbed some of those and mixed away.  Not only did it make the cleanup practically nothing (just throw the gloves in the trash), it made it kind of fun to play around in the cake-play-do-like mix.  By the way, I highly recommend making this recipe, but be prepared for a lot of mess and a divinely rich dessert. 

When we bought our new van over two years ago, it had that "new car smell" and it also looked spotless.  I loved it.  I don't know about you, but my cars have never stayed very clean for very long.  This time I thought I'd try harder to keep my new van clean.  I went to Wally-world and purchased a Dusting Microfiber cloth for around $2.  I keep it tucked in a bottom compartment in the van console, and pull it out every so often to dust my dashboard. Every once in a while, I throw it in the washer to get the dust and dirt off of it.  I've also used it to wipe the rain off my door when I have to open my window in the rain.  It has kept my dashboard clean for these 2+ years.  If only I could keep my cup holders clean too!

And finally, back to the cloth diapers.  I found this company when I was looking for cloth diaper tips that sold trial-run packages of cloth diapers.  They included a bunch of different brands of diapers in this package so you could "test drive" different brands before you spent all your money on them.  They send out a pack, let you try them for a few days/weeks, then you return the pack to them.   I loved that concept, but like some others who commented on their site, wondered how they kept the diapers clean.  It turns out that they strip them every time they get them back. So, I took this bit of wisdom, and strip my diapers every few weeks as well.  It really helps to get the stink out.  All you do is put your diapers in the washer with HOT water, dissolve some Oxi-Clean, let them sit in the water for a while (usually I let them sit for a half hour), then finish the wash cycle.  I also do an extra rinse on the days I strip them, just to make sure they're squeaky clean.  This has kept my diapers looking great, with very few stains.

Those are all of my random cleaning tips for this week's What Works For Me.  Stop by We Are THAT Family to see what other cleaning tips you can find.