Category: Homemaking

6 Tips to keep your kitchen clean

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The kitchen is the most important place at home. It is a place where we cook our everyday meal and is more likely to get dirty, greasy and messy. Keeping it clean and maintaining it is crucial for the overall health of your family.

kitchen

Check out some of the interesting kitchen cleaning hacks detailed below:

  1.    Use your sink effectively

As you work in the kitchen, more vessels get used and cleaning up everything at the end is more challenging. The best way to make it easy is to fill up the sink with soapy water. As and when you finish using the vessels, dump them all into the sink. Let it get soaked, while you finish off the cooking. At the end rinse them off in the clean water and wipe it off.

  1.    Keep your oven clean

Oven tends to get very dirty as you use it often. Some of the clever tricks can make your life simple. Place an oven liner mat at the bottom of your oven. When the food is baking, it is prone to spill out or ooze out juices. An oven mat can hold all this and prevent the oven from getting messier. It is also easier to clean the oven mat when compared to the oven itself.

  1.    Keep the Fridge mess free

A fridge is a place where we store almost 50% of our kitchen items and hence, it is prone to get messy. Ensure to place a cookie sheet before placing a packet of meat, this can absorb dripping and avoid fridge contamination. Also, ensure to wipe off the fridge shelf space, before placing the bottles of dressing like salsa, ketchup, mayonnaise etc.

  1.    Place the cooking oil bottles carefully

If there is one thing in the kitchen which makes the place greasy, it is mostly the cooking oil. Make sure to place the cooking oil bottle on a plastic lid. You can simply use an old ice cream buckets lid for placing bigger oil bottles. For smaller ones make use of cupcake liners. This is for sure to save you from the pain of cleaning the greasy cabinets or shelves.

  1.    Keep your cabinets dirt free

No matter how great your kitchen design is, if not well-maintained it can screw up the overall look. We all dump in the kitchen essentials like plates, spoons, forks etc into the cabinet’s drawers. This can mess up the draws and make the cleaning a pain. To make your life easy, prefer storing all this in a removable plastic container inside the draws.  When you want to use all of it for your guests, you can just remove this storage box as it is, cleans the used items and put it back into the draw.

  1.    Other useful hacks

Use of slow cooker can save you so much energy and time. This can save you from scrubbing the crock down forever. To make the cleaning super easy, use a slow cooker liner. If you always wonder how to clean the used blender, fret not! Fill it up with soapy water and blend it quickly for few seconds. Voila! The blender is all clean in a snap.

Getting Guest Ready: How To Prepare Your Home For A Horde Of House Guests

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House guests

When you’ve got a large family, or lots of friends, it’s pretty much applied that you’re going to get a lot of guests throughout the year. So much so, that you probably choose a house that’s suitable for entertainment and the many hosting duties that you’re likely to have. But sometimes, even that’s not enough to ensure that you’re always ready to take on a horde of house guests at a moment’s notice. So, instead, you need to know what kind of preparation process to go through. This can be particularly handy for you if you’ve recently moved into your own home and it’s your first time hosting. So let’s take a look at what you’ll need to do to get ready.

Make A List

The first thing that you’re going to need to do to help yourself here, is to make a list. Because your mind is probably racing with all of the different things that you need to do, and if you don’t write them down, you may find that you forget them easily. So, start out with a list. You may find that you have to write down things that you need to do to feel prepared, like extra toiletries and food, as well as a list of different things that you can all do together. Because if you’ve got guests staying for a few days, you might need to keep them entertained too.

House guests

Prepare The Guest Rooms

Next, you’re then going to need to prepare the guest rooms. And it’s important to recognize that you may need to prepare more than one room if you have them, and if you have more than one set of guests coming. Perhaps you’ve got a group of friends coming to stay? Then it’s likely that you’ll need at least one room to house them, meaning you’ve got more than one set of bedding and toiletries to prepare.

And The Extra Beds

You may even find that you have more guests coming over then you can physically house in a bedroom. So, you’re going to have to get some extra beds from somewhere. If you entertain regularly, you might want to look into a solution like the Alstons sofas offer that are stylish but convert into sofa beds too. Then, they’ll look great on an everyday basis but convert into a sleeping solution at a moment’s notice.

Streamline Your Storage

Then, you’re also going to want to clear out some of the storage you have around the home too – particular in the guest bedroom. Because your guests are going to want to ensure that they have somewhere to keep their stuff while they’re staying with you.

And Get Ready To Greet Them

Finally, you should also be thinking about how you’re going to greet them when they arrive. Because you’re going to want to make a song and dance of it. Think about the nibbles and refreshments that you can pull together so that they can feel right at home as soon as they arrive.

 

Image credits
Image 1 – Photo by Kaboompics // Karolina from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-preparing-christmas-table-6270/

Image 2 – Photo by Mary Whitney from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-bed-comforter-during-daytimne-90317/

Image 3 – Photo by Kaboompics // Karolina from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/glasses-of-rose-wine-6290/

 

 

Give Your Child The Bedroom They’ve Always Wanted In 3 Simple Steps

Posted on by Joy
give your child the bedroom that they’ve always wanted
Image credit: Oyvind Solstad – https://flic.kr/p/4voZJx

For a child, their bedroom isn’t just the place in which they go to sleep at night; It is also their sanctuary and their play den. You want your child to feel comfortable in their bedroom and for it to be practical, but at the same time, they just want it to look cool. It is relatively simple to find a happy medium and give your child the bedroom that they’ve always wanted, and here’s how:

  1. What’s Their Favorite Color?

The first place you want to start is always the color scheme. Ask your child what their favorite color is if you don’t already know, and then plan how to incorporate this color into their bedroom. The walls are the most obvious place, as is the carpet, and their duvet. If your child’s favorite color is something garish or really dark, like yellow or black, you may want to avoid painting the room this color, but that doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate it somehow. Wall decals, and furniture, and even curtains would work well, as long as they didn’t clash with the rest of the room.

  1. Feature Their Favorites

If your child has a favorite tv show, film, or book, why not find a way to incorporate this into their bedroom? You don’t necessarily need an interior design company to design and paint a great feature wall. Print out outlines of characters or objects from the show, book, or film and cut them out to use as stencils to paint on the wall. If this is too tricky, then there are lots of wall murals online, that are incredibly easy to put up. Also ensure that any cuddly toys or posters they have are on display, to really tie the room together.

  1. Make It Fun

As mentioned before, your child sees their bedroom not only as a place to sleep, but also a place to play, so you need to make it fun for them. Their bed is a great place to start, as it is the main piece of furniture in the room. Children often find high sleeper beds cool, especially if they have a slide or a fireman’s pole attached to them, so that might be something to consider. Your child will then be able to use the area underneath the bed as a little hideaway or a den, and could even sleep in it if they had a friend stop over. If your child is particularly creative, then consider having a wall painted with chalkboard paint instead of a feature wall. Then they would be able to have whatever it was that they wanted to decorate that wall of their bedroom at any time.

Giving your child the bedroom they have always wanted often seems like an impossible task, but it doesn’t have to be. As long as they have a few fun and cool things in their room to show off to their friends, they will be happy with whatever you decide to do.

The Gloves Are…On?

Posted on by Joy

Dust Kittens

 

Cleaning. It’s the bane of many a homeowner’s life. You can do your best to keep things clean, but the muck has an annoying habit of building regardless. Worse, it builds the moment you finish cleaning. All you need to do is turn your back, and the dust is there again! Though the cleaning conundrum applies to the whole house, some rooms are worse than others. It goes without saying that the kitchen is a crucial place to keep clean. And, also one of the hardest. But, the bathroom has it beaten in those stakes. And, the bathroom sees a lot more muck and unpleasant stuff than the kitchen side! So, we’re going to look at how to perfect your bathroom cleaning methods. It’s time to tackle the beast!

 

Yellow Rubber Gloves

 

THE RIGHT PRODUCTS

Buying the right cleaning products should be top of your list. You’re going to be using some heavy duty chemicals. It might be worth stocking up on some rubber gloves, too! Knowing what products you need can be difficult. There are many on the market. For the most part, though, a lot of the options available are unnecessary. For your general cleaning, you should be okay with a bottle of cream cleaner and some bleach. Oh, and don’t forget a washcloth! Other jobs require other products, but these aren’t necessary every time you clean. You may want to buy some glass cleaner for your shower enclosures. In general, the cream cleaner will work on these too. A specialised cleaner may be necessary for getting those stubborn water marks off. Depending on your toilet, you may also want to keep a rim cleaner on hand. Not all toilets need these, but those with small bowls or deep rims could benefit!

 

bathroom cleaning

 

SPOT PROBLEM AREAS

It’s also important that you know what things to look out for while you clean. Some areas are going to cause more problems than others. Any tight corners could invite a buildup of muck. Make sure you clean behind your door, and behind your toilet. Areas like these are easily forgotten, but they’re notorious for dirt. Think, too, about problem areas like grouting. If you have shower tiles, it’s crucial you clean the grouting with cream cleaner. You may notice a slightly pink colouration each time. If you don’t wipe that away, it can cause blackening and breaking. If you let jobs like that slide, they’re a lot harder to cope with!


HINTS AND TIPS

Hints and tips will also help in your cleaning quest. After all, you can’t get things right if you don’t know what to do. This is especially true when cleaning those problems areas we spoke about. Get advice about the best way to stop your grout from rotting. Find out, too, how best to clean behind the toilet. You can find out most things online. It might also help to talk to friends and see if they have any tricks to share. A problem shared is a problem halved, after all.

 

Image credit:

Image 1 – https://flic.kr/p/6YrFq2
Image 2 – https://flic.kr/p/adNn8V
Image 3 – https://flic.kr/p/8WWEnt

 

 

How to Select the Most Appealing Cabinets for Your Kitchen

Posted on by Joy

Your kitchen cabinets hold your plates, glasses, bowls and other dishes. But, just because kitchen cabinets are practical items doesn’t mean they have to be plain. Look at a few things to consider when selecting the best Lancaster custom cabinets for your kitchen.

 

kitchen cabinets

 

The Color of the Wood

If you have flooring in a dark color, you may want to go with white or light-colored kitchen cabinets as a contrast. When guests enter your kitchen, their eyes will immediately move up from the dark colored flooring to your cabinets. If you want to make a bold statement, consider cherry wood. This deep red wood makes a striking impression. If your flooring, walls and countertops are neutral in color, your cherry wood cabinets are likely to become the highlight of the kitchen!

The Design of the Cabinets

The design of a cabinet can add flair to a kitchen in need of a refreshed look. Instead of getting white cabinets with a plain surface you may want to opt for some with a raised or recessed design. This simple detail can make all the difference in the overall appearance of the space. Oftentimes, it’s a good idea to echo the style of some other items in your kitchen. For instance, if you have a wooden kitchen door with a recessed design, you may want to get cabinets in that same style. This ties together the space in a subtle way.

The Handles on Your Cabinets

A cabinet handle may seem like an incidental detail, but it can be an appealing finishing touch on a beautifully crafted cabinet. As an example, there are bronze handles with intricate design work. Plus, there are knobs that are a traditional choice, but with an interesting twist in their style. Of course, a handle is a practical item and it must be sturdy and ready for heavy use. However, a handle or knob can be just as attractive as the cabinet it’s attached to.

Finally, think about the tone you want to set in your kitchen. Do you want a light, airy atmosphere? If so, white or neutral colors can lighten up the tone of the space. It’s worth your time to think about the type of kitchen you want to spend time in with family and friends.

 

Image credit: Nancy Hugo, CKD – https://flic.kr/p/CXEp5