The other day a friend stopped by while we were cleaning up our home. We offered them a drink and they followed us around while we put the finishing touches on our home. We swiped a used dryer sheet over our coffee table, we shined our windows with crumpled newspaper and Windex, we slipped a pillowcase over our ceiling fan's blades to catch the dust. Our friend was amused by our methods. It's a madness we've accumulated over the years: from friends, from family, from Apartment Therapy, and from various magazines and blogs...
Lately one of our favorite go to spots for the kind of information that doesn't turn out to be so useless after all is Things Your Grandmother Knew, a resource for the kind of tips that seem like crazy quirks but actually make life and home keeping a lot easier. Many of these tips are acquired from magazines, product inserts and cookbooks from the 30s and 40s, the places you looked before Martha and before the internet. Some of our recent favorites tips include:
- To prevent plaster chipping when driving in a nail, heat the nail first. It will go in smoothly and a chunk of plaster won't fall out
- Dip the bottoms of plant pots and trays in melted paraffin. The wax will seep into the clay, making them waterproof and preventing those annoying rings on furniture, windowsills and floors.
- Lay a damp cloth or sheet over dusty furniture and beat it. The damp fabric will absorb the dust.
What are some of your tried and true cleaning tips that you learned from your mother, father or grandparents?
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Comments (11)
My granny's best tip was to hire a housekeeper. She also sent out her laundry.
When she had houseguests, she used a secret formula to calculate exactly how much toilet paper each person would use. The formula died with her, alas.
1. When doing work that will raise dust, periodically mist the air with water. The water will knock down the dust.
2. If you are unfortunate enough to move into an apartment with a disgusting fridge or freezer (e.g. rotten food left in it), place a small amount of ammonia in an open container and close it inside the offending compartment for a few days. It'll remove even the smell of decomposing fish.
we slipped a pillowcase over our ceiling fan's blades to catch the dust ---> thanks for that tip!
AT, I love your external links but I wish they would pop up in a new window. Is it purposeful that it's done this way? If not, it's a super easy code.
My Grandmother is a woman who remembers the Great Depression like it never left. One of my favorite things I found in her huge farmhouse kitchen was a drawer of what looked like empty paper towel tubes. What was inside the tubes surprised me even more: neatly folded and stored produce bags, gently used ziplock bags, and rolled bits of waxed paper for placing in her cookie tins.
It's not so much a cleaning tip as it was a lesson in organization and two of the three R's (reduce and reuse).
@ Rouncewell- just ctrl click and they'll open up in a new tab or window.
Never thought of using used dryer sheet to dust with. Thanks!
Re: the hot nail trick... my mom's tip is to just put the nail through a bit of blue painter's tape loosely stuck on and peel it away afterward... works like a charm, is a bit easier than heating up nails, and also saves you having to mark on your wall where you want to put the nail in (nice if you have to change it around a bit before you start hammering)!
I love the sound of the paraffin trick (I have tons of plants, so I am always hunting for things to set them on so they don't ruin surfaces)... but won't they still create condensation under them just because they are cold and damp inside (sort of like a mirror)? Has anyone actually tried this?
Re: the links... yes, it's easy to get around, but AT should probably change it... I was taught it was a standard web design courtesy that external links should open in a new window/internal in the same window.
Melted paraffiin? Made from those oh! so green petroleum products?
FantasticMrFaux,
thanks for pointing that out. most of these tips are from a time when green was just a colour. i'd suggest that for the modern version you could use the butt ends of leftover soy candles. the soy wax will serve the same function as paraffin does.
Now I'm wishing for plaster walls . . .