Housewife How To's

cleaning tips

How To Clean Patio Furniture

May 5, 2013
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It’s wonderful spending warmer days and nights sitting on the patio or deck, sipping a cool beverage and listening to the sound of crickets or the happy voices of children chasing fireflies. But what if your outdoor seating is covered with a winter’s worth of grime? Knowing how to clean patio furniture quickly will not [...]

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How To Remove Hairspray From Walls

April 24, 2013
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Even when you’re careful using it, hairspray gets all over the place, discoloring your walls. Taking the time to remove hairspray carefully can not only improve your bathroom’s appearance, it’s a necessary step before repainting if you want your new paint job to last. Before using any of these methods, be sure to test in [...]

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How To Deodorize Your House Naturally

April 19, 2013
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If you have pets, or even if you cook regularly, there are bound to be times when you’ll need to deodorize your house to remove some of those funky smells. Commercial products (whether in aerosol, pump, candle or plug-in form) contribute to indoor air pollution by adding over 80 air contaminants, including acetaldehyde which, when [...]

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How To Care For Wood Spoons

April 10, 2013
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Although most of us have at least one in our kitchen, not everyone knows how to care for wood spoons. Rather than gleaming, our wood spoons start to look dull and dry, then shaggy, and then they splinter and crack while we’re cooking. But here’s the thing: these aren’t just great cooking tools, they’re economical, [...]

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Keep Your Dish Rags From Smelling

March 21, 2013
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In this week’s Reader Questions, Lynne wants to know how to keep your dish rags from smelling so… funky. Although she’s fastidious about rinsing them after use, and hanging them over the divider in the middle of her sink, they still reek by the end of the day. So do her cleaning cloths. As far [...]

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How To Steam Clean Carpeting

March 20, 2013
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With Spring Cleaning well underway in many homes (but not mine, yet), now’s the time many homemakers wonder how to steam clean carpeting to reduce household dust and odors, remove carpet stains, and get their floor deep-down clean. Obviously, you can go the more-expensive route and hire professional carpet cleaners, but once you know how [...]

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How To Clean A Coffee Maker

March 14, 2013
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When my husband and I got married, we had no idea it was possible, much less necessary, to clean a coffee maker. Back then, his preferred way to make coffee was by dumping out half of the grounds from the morning before, replacing half with fresh grounds, and then starting the pot. I, on the other [...]

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How To Clean A Shower Head And Why You Should

February 27, 2013
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We’ve already gone over how to remove mold and mildew from the shower curtain and stall, but did you realize that shower heads accumulate mold and mildew, too? It’s true! In fact, a third of shower heads tested by researchers were found to contain a bacteria associated with pulmonary disease. Dirty shower heads are also [...]

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How To Reduce Household Clutter

February 20, 2013

How is your New Year’s resolution to reduce household clutter coming along now that we’re seven weeks into 2013? For those of you still struggling, or those who’ve given up already, take a deep breath and know that it is possible to meet this goal. You don’t need a whole weekend, or even an entire [...]

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