Friday, March 18, 2011

Spring Cleaning...

I. Love. Spring.

Seriously.  I love everything about it.  New grass.  The sun.  The fresh smell of the air.  Flip-flops (when the temp hits 60 degrees).

I don't even mind spring cleaning.  In fact, it puts me in such a good mood to cast-off winter by giving the house a fresh scrubbing. 

Today, I'm tackling my upholstery.  With little ones (and light furniture) it seems by winter's end, I start casting sideways glances at my couch, noticing that hint of dinge (is that a word?) from little paws.
I couldn't take it anymore and pulled out my trusty upholstery cleaner recipe and went to work.
Seriously, this homemade upholstery cleaner works amazingly well, and it costs mere cents to make!

Upholstery Cleaner:
1 Cup warm water
1/4 Cup clear dish soap
*I use Palmolive Pure+Clear because it smells amazingly fresh and it's gentle*
(This recipes is enough to clean my couch and three upholstered chairs)

Directions:
Place ingredients in a large bowl and beat with a mixer until stiff foam appears.
*Or, in our case, let your almost two-year-old stir it with a plastic spoon...it just might take a while*


Use a clean cloth to gently apply the foam to the fabric.  Apply more foam to heavily soiled areas...

As the foam in the bowl begins to deflate, leaving behind extra liquid, simply beat it with the mixer again to get more foam.  Once you have applied the foam to all of your upholstery, fill a bowl with cool water and rinse the fabric by gently wiping the damp cloth on the fabric (being careful to not soak your fabric).  Change the water frequently if it becomes dirty.

At this point, let your upholstery air-dry (you can point fans on it to speed the process up).
I've been using this recipe for about a year now, and will never go back to the commercial brands. 

Do you have any cleaning tricks up your sleeve?  I would love to hear them!

Happy Spring Cleaning everyone!


*You may want to do a test spot to be sure the cleaner will not fade fabric...although, I have not had this issue.
**This cleaner is very concentrated, and it does burn if you get it in your eyes...not that I would know from personal experience...

4 comments:

Lindsay - Pen and Paint said...

Hahaha, I am laughing about it burning your eyes.
I have a very dark red couch, the better to hide the stains, not that I do that.
Any spring cleaning tricks? Um, gather up everything we don't need and have a yard sale.

Nikki said...

Ooooh...I like that one! We're planning to have a yard sale in a couple of weeks! Yay for decluttering!

Unknown said...

Oh i'm inspired! Thank you!

And my couch thanks you!

Nicole @ one half world said...

Thanks for the cleaning recipe. I will have to try it!