Spring Cleaning Part 1.

This is probably going to be a long and boring post, but I'll put in a lot of pictures!

Yesterday was the first day in months that it was above 40.
I think we hit a high of 63. Not only was it warm, but it was SUNNY! Since it was warmer outside than it was inside, we had the windows open, and I confess that I got a little spring fever.

This is a bad idea to get so early in Upstate New York especially since looking at the forecast it's supposed to drop back down into the 30's in a few days.

I live in an apartment for now, which means not much outdoor work to speak of, so I'll concentrate this spring fever into spring cleaning.

Fancy (fiance sounds so pretentious) is at work today, and I'm off so I have an ambitious list of things to do today.

Of course I have to go to the store first to get a few things that I'll need. I should also plan out dinner before I go so that I don't have to make two trips...but that probably won't happen. Does anyone else do this? Three trips to the grocery store in one day? Luckily it's only about half a mile away, and I don't have children. Otherwise I doubt I could afford that luxury.

Before leaving, I put a load of ignorables in the laundry (Shower curtain, mattress pad, etc.) and used this tip from Make It Do to spring clean my mattress. Below is my picture, but the strainer I used must have holes that are too large. The baking soda mix just fell straight through onto the mattress. I shook it around a little, and used the strainer to pat the mattress to help distribute.

I also febreezed our pillows. They can't be washed, but they are the most comfortable pillows ever. It's like sleeping on a cloud. I've had mind for about two years and it is just as comfortable as when I first got it.

The next project was deep cleaning the oven and the grates on the stove. This is an apartment oven, meaning it came with the apartment and so it has decades of people (college aged boys lived here before us) abusing it. I found this idea online for how to do it with less effort. I'll post the before picture, and tomorrow (if all goes as planned) the after!

Cleaning the oven did not go quite as well. I wanted to do a more natural clean (vinegar/baking soda) but the grease was pretty baked on and after several frustrating attempts, I broke down and used an oven cleaner.

That also did not go well. I didn't read the directions on the can which instructs you to preheat the oven to 200 degrees before spraying. Since I had already sprayed it down, I just turned it to 200 and went to eat my lunch. I forgot about it until the smoke alarms went off and the kitchen was filled with smokey fumes. Ugh. Thank goodness it's a warm day. With the windows open and ceiling fan on, it cleared pretty quickly. So back to square one with the oven.

I decided to try ammonia. Since I'm using that on the grates of the stove, I'm hoping it does a good job on the oven. The bottle instructed to place a small dish or bowl of it in the oven overnight and simply wipe off in the morning. We'll see how it looks in the morning. So much for making dinner tonight. Thank goodness for Chinese.

I also washed my car! It started out as just squirting the salt off, but then I realized it just looked even worse. The salty water dried in streaks and left a striped look. So I grabbed a bucket with a squirt of soap in it, some drying rags and a washing rag. That was the fastest and most satisfying job of the day! 

I cleaned up our stairwell and shoe area. It's hard to see the difference in the before and after because these are well worn, paint splattered stairs. Again, it's an apartment, and while things like that really bother me I can't justify the time and effort it would take to make them perfect when we'll be leaving in less than a year.
I scrubbed them down, and polished the wood. Even if it doesn't look great, for today it smells clean at least.

Before

After

Before

After

 This is a really inexpensive shoe rack which you can see part of in the first "before" picture. It's not really designed for giant man shoes, but it works well enough to keep them off the floor and out of the entry way. We have another shoe rack which is in the back of the coat closet for things like snow boots and flip flops that we don't wear as often.

So at the end of the day, I got to cross off most things on my list. Of course I kept adding things to the list as the day went on too. Sometimes I add something just to be able to cross it off. Other people do that too, right?

I think I'll tackle the refrigerator tomorrow along with the rest of the stove/oven project.
Stay tuned for Spring Cleaning Part 2!