Chicken Wire Ghost Tutorial
1 year ago
Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts
Monday, April 30, 2012
Taa Daah!
I now have the cleanest chicken coop in the county! I also (for completely unrelated reasons) have a very shiny clean, fresh smelling Wonder-Dog. Also, for reasons that are TOTALLY related to having to clean out the chicken coop by myself, with my weak, totally out of shape muscles--I finally sewed myself the nice heat pack filled with wheat that you heat up in the microwave (and my house totally smells like overtoasted wheat). Yay me! The back and shoulder muscles should stop protesting eventually.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
My life is pretty close to perfect
Recently I had the chance to stay at the home of a friend-of-a-friend. Her home was beautiful. It was a fairly new house--built in the last 5 or 10 years, I would say. It had a lovely stone fireplace, tasteful wall decor, immaculate carpets (think beige--LOTS of beige) lovely furniture suites upstairs and down. It was also sparklingly clean. Like, even with 4 children who are alternately there (due to custody issues) and 4 dogs it was sparkling.
It would be almost impossible not to contrast it with my house.
My house was built over 100 years ago. It is a comfortable late Victorian (which means it doesn't have any gingerbread trim, but it does have a great porch and many funky roof angles and walls that stick out in funny places). It is in DIRE need of a new coat of paint on the outside (but first we have to fix all the places where the racoons or the wisteria ripped off bits of the siding).
It is not in a suburban neighborhood full of it's clone. We have one neighbor whose house is our home's "sister", but all of the other houses are in MANY random styles. There is not a lot of "taupe" or "beige" in our neighborhood. There are a lot of mature trees and amazing flower gardens.
Our furniture is that classic style "early thrift store". Not one piece matches another. EVERY single wall (and every other surface for that matter) has been written on by SmallDaughter. I refuse to repaint while she is still in the active picasso phase. I also refuse to get new carpet while she still dumps stuff. So our whole house has strange 1950's era avacado green and algae colored wool carpet--that ALWAYS comes clean, no matter what she has dumped on it (bubble bath, hershey's syrup, yellow mustard...)
It is not imaculate. Even when I clean and clean, I still can't get it to "immaculate". It is not filthy, but it is definitely lived in, and the fact that I personally can overlook something in the middle of the floor and step over it for MONTHS does nothing to help that.
With all that said, our house is full of life and laughter. Spills and messes are not crises, just something to clean up. Everyone is free to try creative endeavors, because we are not thwarted by the fear of messing up the perfection. All of the neighbor kids cook in my kitchen. My yard gets played in daily. My porch is never boring!
My funny looking raised gardens out back are thriving. The chickens behind the barn are fat, healthy and contented. I like them a lot more than I ever imagined that I would. My children are kind, funny, creative and polite. What more could I want?
It would be almost impossible not to contrast it with my house.
My house was built over 100 years ago. It is a comfortable late Victorian (which means it doesn't have any gingerbread trim, but it does have a great porch and many funky roof angles and walls that stick out in funny places). It is in DIRE need of a new coat of paint on the outside (but first we have to fix all the places where the racoons or the wisteria ripped off bits of the siding).
It is not in a suburban neighborhood full of it's clone. We have one neighbor whose house is our home's "sister", but all of the other houses are in MANY random styles. There is not a lot of "taupe" or "beige" in our neighborhood. There are a lot of mature trees and amazing flower gardens.
Our furniture is that classic style "early thrift store". Not one piece matches another. EVERY single wall (and every other surface for that matter) has been written on by SmallDaughter. I refuse to repaint while she is still in the active picasso phase. I also refuse to get new carpet while she still dumps stuff. So our whole house has strange 1950's era avacado green and algae colored wool carpet--that ALWAYS comes clean, no matter what she has dumped on it (bubble bath, hershey's syrup, yellow mustard...)
It is not imaculate. Even when I clean and clean, I still can't get it to "immaculate". It is not filthy, but it is definitely lived in, and the fact that I personally can overlook something in the middle of the floor and step over it for MONTHS does nothing to help that.
With all that said, our house is full of life and laughter. Spills and messes are not crises, just something to clean up. Everyone is free to try creative endeavors, because we are not thwarted by the fear of messing up the perfection. All of the neighbor kids cook in my kitchen. My yard gets played in daily. My porch is never boring!
My funny looking raised gardens out back are thriving. The chickens behind the barn are fat, healthy and contented. I like them a lot more than I ever imagined that I would. My children are kind, funny, creative and polite. What more could I want?
Saturday, March 7, 2009
A deeply clean bathroom
Three weeks ago, the light burned out in my downstairs bathroom. By this I mean both the switch and the light socket. Totally dead. Nada. Nothing. Not particularly surprising--this house is over 100 years old, and things go out all the time. HOWEVER--the downstairs bath (which, in realtor terms is a "quarter bath" ie., a tiny closet containing a sink and a toilet. Thats it.) doesn't have any windows, and when it's light went it was DARK.
My creative children solved this by placing a row of all of my scented, decorative candles in a row across the top of the sink. Lovely. Problem delayed.
Yesterday (Yippee!!) the light fixture was repaired, and light was restored again!
Revealing--wow, you don't see a whole lot by candlelight! The sink was filled with a multicolored hodgepodge of wax drips that reminded me of an italian restaraunt candle my mom had when I was small (stuff a colored candle in a short, round wine bottle, let it drip down the sides, then burn lots of different colors so you have lots of picturesque drippage--what can I say, it was the 70's!)
Anyway, I had to remove the trap from the sink to clean all the stuff out (lots of burned match stubs, also) and scrub the sink with much elbow grease, and many tools, but now--VOILA! A sparkling clean, brightly lit bathroom!
I don't like cleaning much, but I do love nice, clean stuff!
My creative children solved this by placing a row of all of my scented, decorative candles in a row across the top of the sink. Lovely. Problem delayed.
Yesterday (Yippee!!) the light fixture was repaired, and light was restored again!
Revealing--wow, you don't see a whole lot by candlelight! The sink was filled with a multicolored hodgepodge of wax drips that reminded me of an italian restaraunt candle my mom had when I was small (stuff a colored candle in a short, round wine bottle, let it drip down the sides, then burn lots of different colors so you have lots of picturesque drippage--what can I say, it was the 70's!)
Anyway, I had to remove the trap from the sink to clean all the stuff out (lots of burned match stubs, also) and scrub the sink with much elbow grease, and many tools, but now--VOILA! A sparkling clean, brightly lit bathroom!
I don't like cleaning much, but I do love nice, clean stuff!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
