All photos: One Good Thing by Jillee
It’s almost time for a new year, a clean slate, a clean house! Check out these creative cleaning hacks from One Good Thing by Jillee and you’ll be ready for 2018. Or, you know, you can do this stuff now and have a sparkling clean house before you entertain for the holidays. Either way.
Garbage disposals can get all kinds of funky and disgusting, but never fear! You can make your own vinegar and lemon ice cubes and get it sanitized and smelling good in no time. Simply fill an ice cube tray with a small chunk of fresh lemon in each space, then top off with vinegar. You can store the frozen cubes in a baggie in the freezer; every few days, toss a couple of cubes down the disposal and run until melted. So fresh and so clean, clean! An extra note from Jillee:
- If citrus peels are unavailable and your garbage disposal is in desperate need of cleaning and deodorizing, use two tablespoons of vanilla, orange or lemon extract instead. Learn more about this hack HERE!
As crazy as it sounds, your dishwasher (and washing machine, actually) needs to be cleaned on a regular basis. First, pull out the bottom dish rack and check inside on the bottom. There’s likely all kinds of funk stuck in there. Gross as it sounds, you need to pull out any weird chunks that you find. Then fill a cup with white vinegar and stick it in the top rack. Run the dishwasher through a cycle using the hottest water possible (with nothing inside except the cup of vinegar). After that, sprinkle a bunch of baking soda in the bottom of the dishwasher and run another short, hot cycle. For more on this and cool dishwasher tips, click HERE!
This is a great time to do a sweep of your bathroom and do some extra cleaning in there. Items like bath toys, hair brushes, toilet brushes, and drain stoppers can all use a good soaking. Find out how to do that and more HERE!
Something we’ve battled in the past is smelly towels. And this hack helped save the day! Once again, it involves the two most popular home cleaning products, vinegar and baking soda! Also, lots and lots of HOT water. P.S. don’t burn yourself.
Got a Swiffer? If you’re like me and can’t get the silly pads to stay attached (too many moving parts, I suppose), you can use a big fuzzy sock instead! Just slide the sock over the bottom and start Swiffering! If you have a Swiffer WetJet, try a reusable microfiber towel. You can also make your own WetJet solution using, you guessed it! Vinegar, water, and dish soap. Find out more HERE!
‘Tis the season for endless baking and cooking, and your oven might be getting a little funky. You can clean the oven racks with barely any effort. Simply lay a few used dryer sheets in your bathtub, set the oven racks on top, and fill the top with hot water. Let it soak overnight, then the racks will wipe clean. Learn more HERE!
I’ve always had a self-cleaning oven, but am nervous to use it. You see, once upon a time I tried to use the cleaning feature; the oven was SO dirty, that it caught fire. And since the cleaning mode was on, the door was locked. I ended up having to jerk the oven out of it’s place to reach behind and unplug it. HERE is an easy way to clean it using ammonia, dish soap, time, and a slight bit of elbow grease.
For more simple cleaning hacks from Jillee, click HERE! You can learn tricks to clean a flat iron, get the dust off the ceiling fan, get the window blinds clean, and more!
