Clean simple with your own home-made solution pt.2: Baking soda to the rescue!

Sometimes I think I'm just way behind the times, but I figure I can't be the only one who doesn't know this or that, however basic it may seem.

My mother has grandchildren, not from me but my sister who has two little rascally boys made all the more rascally when staying over at grandma's, for as the saying goes "it's the grandmother's duty to spoil her grandchildren" - she does this quite well by the way, and then she wonders why they don't listen to her.

On such one over-night occasion, her two darling rascally grandchildren took a blue ink pen to the sofa as if it was their very own canvas!  This large arc sectional has been in the family since I was born, and has been reupholstered once with beautiful sea-green velvet-like textured fabric.  The drawing stayed on the sectional for quite some time and then one day I came over and realized the large pen marks were gone, as if they were never there.

And what did Mom tell me?  "Baking Soda, water and a small soft cleaning-brush".  I have yet to try this but my eyes do not deceive me.  I'm sure I'll have to use this home-solution some day and when that day comes, you'll hear about it.

Home of: Diana von Furstenberg

Name:  Diane Simone Michelle Halfin

AKA:  Dian von Furstenberg

From:  Brussels, Belgium

Date of birth:  December 13, 1946

Specialty:  Fashion designer, DVF

*Pictures from Architectural Digest

Furstenberg's Manhattan Penthouse
serves as Diane von Furstenberg's home & office

Outdoor roof-top patio from her master bedroom

Sitting area with a picture of the DVF designer herself

Dining table that also doubles as an office desk

Breakfast table

Lips sofa with a painting of artist, Anh Doung 

Cement staircase lined with Swarovski studded steel cables

Guest bedroom

Master bedroom is contained in a glass structure

The bed

A view outside from the master bedroom

Master bathroom

I Stand Behind: Rust Brushes

I'm not all too sure if Rust Brushes is actually what these bad babies are called but I can't seem to think of a more suitable name for them.

Just recently I moved into a 100 year old home in the middle of Los Angeles, and with it came some very old furniture in need of some serious love and care... and also hardware!  I love hardware especially old ones, which is exactly what this new old-home came with, old crystal finial door-knobs, brass hooks and towel bars, all of which I would love to reuse of course.  Needless to say, being that these hardwares were much older than I they were in need of some cleaning and scrubbing.

I picked up the kitchen towel bar and was enamored with it's simplicity and shape, only to be bought sometime way back when.  The poor thing was rusted over, dusty and grimy!  I filled my kitchen sink with 1/2 water and 1/2 vinegar and soaked the bar for about 4-5 hours, to my pleasure the sparkle was coming back to the old kitchen towel bar.  I drained the sink and dried the towel bar and left it aside to be hung for later only to discover later that night the towel bar was beginning to rust anew!  Imagine my surprise!

However, lucky for me I have a very handy husband equipped with very handy tools and a very handy brain.  He handed me three Rust Brushes, the bristles all different, each coarser than the other.  The very next day I tried my luck with the Rust Brushes and... of course they worked!  Like a dream too.  The rust simply brushed off, I couldn't believe my eyes!  I always thought rust was rust and once it was there there was just no getting away from it.  I might have ended up hanging the beautiful vintage towel bar somewhere in the back of my shed I suppose had it not been for these rescue Rust Brushes... *sigh, my heros.

Barn Homes

"Were you raised by wolves?" Or shall I ask for the sake of this post, "Were you raised in a barn?" Takes on a new and literal meaning.  Barns have a space similar to that of a warehouse and so naturally it didn't take us long to realize that a barn converted home could be quite spectacular and could realize many possibilities relative to breaking down the space... or not breaking down the space- should you go for the urban warehouse style.  Below are a few pics of barn converted homes, I think by the end you'll realize being raised in a barn might not be so bad after all.

Exterior:

Interior of modernized barn homes:

Interior of contemporary barn homes:

Interior of urbanized barn homes:

Interior of rustic barn homes:

Clean simple with your own home-made solution

Clean simple with:  Bleach & Water solution

Fill a spray bottle with half bleach and half water, add more bleach if you'd like.  Remember to label the bottle.

Spray your tub, your grout, your white tiles and your sink to get it to whiten and/or (my favorite way to use) to get mildew that is black or red to whiten resulting in clean and re-whitened areas!

There are limits to the Bleach & Water solution however, let's just remember that it can't perform magic.  If your mildew is out of control and is blacker than black you'll find that you'll have to spray multiple times to whiten that mildew.  If you've been spraying all day and can't seem to get that mildew around your sink edges to whiten as much as you'd like it might be best to start thinking about stripping and re-caulking those areas.

My all-time favorite way to use bleach & water solution is on shower curtains.  After some use your shower curtain can start to mildew, after a shower simple spray down the shower curtain on the areas that are needed, wah-la!  You'll have mildew free shower curtains in no time!

Clean simple with:  Vinegar & Water solution

Fill a spray bottle with half vinegar and half water, add more vinegar if you'd like.  Remember to label the bottle.

Vinegar charms me with its abilities to make metal shine and to remove rust, yes rust!  To remove rust soak a paper-towel in vinegar and wrap or lay on-top of area that is rusted, leave for a couple hours or even over night, douse the paper-towel again with more vinegar if need be or if it'll give you a peace-of-mind.  With a slight scrub your rust should fall right off!

I always keep a spray bottle of vinegar & water solution handy to wipe grimy and gross areas, it works wonders to get crud off the top of the stove as well!  Sure it doesn't smell all that pleasant but I find that it works better than most cleaning agents and is chemical free, another big plus in my opinion.

Hallways standing their own ground

Hallways, also known as passages and corridors where one or more individuals may pass through to get from point A to point B.

I suppose it can be the fact that the hallway is not a room itself that allows it to be, for the majority of the time, over-looked.  Even so, there are many ways to decorate your hallways, passages and corridors so that it may shine on its own and as a result boost its confidence as well as your home's.

Let the eye be lead with frames

Dual usage:  A hallway library

Giving the classic-look a boost with an exaggerated feature

Lining it with useful but statement-making storage

Thinking outside the box

5 Star options for keeping your wires together @ The Container Store

CableDrop Cord Clips $9.99 for a pack of 6, available in a variety of colors
THERE SHALL BE NO MORE SLIPPING WIRES FROM THE DESK!
AWESOME FEATURE:  ADHESIVE BACKING

As with any home housing a techi, and that seems to be virtually everyone these days, the inevitable outcome seems to be a tangle of wires.  Concentrated locations of of nests of wires?  Behind the television a.k.a media console area and underneath the computer desk a.k.a. office-space area, now if you're lucky it stops here, however if you're not... well then, you will also find nests of wires near your children's electric guitar and amp a.k.a. music area, in the kitchen where there just happens to be that one plug on that one wall.

I suffer from a tangled mess of wires underneath, sadly to say, my computer desk and the media console of course.  Until the day comes when everything is wireless, and that day isn't coming fast enough, I will just have to figure it out myself.  And that, is how I ended up on The Container Store site looking for ways to organize my life in the least organizable spaces.

Bobino Cord Wraps $2.99 for 1, available in Black, White and Red.  Available in sizes: small, medium and large
NO MORE UNRAVELING WIRES OR TWIST-TIES!
AWESOME FEATURE:  COMES IN THREE DIFFERENT SIZES TO ACCOMODATE ALL WIRE SIZES

Wire Snake Cable Organizer $9.99 for a pack of two, available in black & white
KEEPING IT ALL STRAIGHT AND IN LINE!

BongoTies $5.49 for a pack of 10
KEEPING IT ALL TOGETHER!
AWESOME FEATURE:  CAN HOLD LARGER WIRES AS WELL AS SMALLER WITH ITS ELASTICITY