We Pick Our Best Homemade Cleaner

Over the last few years we have brought you many great ideas on how to make the best homemade cleaner for your toughest stains and cleaning tasks. Here is a summary of our most popular homemade cleaners.

Fan Favorites for The Best Homemade Cleaner

• Homemade Brass and Copper Cleaner - To clean all of your brass and copper, create a paste of vinegar and salt. Use a clean cloth and rub the mixture into the surface until the surface shines. Let it sit for a few minutes and apply the paste again with a clean cloth if necessary. Keep moving what area of the cloth you are using to avoid spreading the discoloration that you have removed. Wipe well with a fresh cloth to bring the metal to a clean shine. 
• Homemade Eyeglass Cleaner - We use a lot of eyeglass cleaner so I worked on making the Ultimate Homemade Eyeglass Cleaning Solution. It is very simple to make and works great. It is safe for most coatings and very inexpensive to make. Make a mixture of 3 parts rubbing alcohol and 1 part water. Add a few drops of mild liquid dish soap. Mix well and put into a spray bottle. Spray both sides of the lens and rub clean with a clean, soft cloth. I find that a good microfiber cloth works the best. Be careful to never use paper towels or else you can scratch your lenses. Rinsing the glasses under the faucet first to quickly wash away excess dirt will also aid in keeping scratches away. 
• Homemade All-Purpose Kitchen Cleaner - A great homemade all-purpose kitchen cleaner is very easy to make, just fill a spray bottle with half white vinegar, half clean water, and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Just spray the surface and wipe down with your Super Scrubbing Cleaning Cloth. Remember to use the button when you get to those dried on food stains to wipe them away easily. This cleaner is fairly acidic and should not be used on granite, marble, natural stone, or wood. 
• Homemade Oven Cleaner - Mix 5 tablespoons of Baking Soda, 4 teaspoons of white vinegar, and a few drops of dish soap in a bowl to make a paste. Spread the paste onto the stains and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Wipe the area clean with a dry cloths or paper towel. I usually take a wet paper towel and give the inside a through wipe down at the end. 
• Homemade Tough Carpet Stain Remover - For tough carpet stains try mixing 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup baking soda, 8 drops of white vinegar, and a small amount of water to make a paste. Spread the paste onto the stain. You can just let it dry or you can work it into the carpet for really tough stains. After the paste has dried, brush with a stiff brush and vacuum. Don't brush too hard as not to damage the carpet. This is a very powerful carpet cleaner so be sure to test your carpet for color fastness. 
• Homemade Wood Furniture Cleaner - To create your own wood cleaner simply combine 1 teaspoon of light olive oil and 1/2 cup of white vinegar. Mix well in a plastic spray bottle. Spray on your wood furniture and work in with a microfiber cloth. This works as well or better than any commercial product that I have tested. When done, use our homemade polish to bring out the shine.

And the fan favorite best homemade cleaner is Homemade Tough Carpet Stain Remover! This homemade cleaner has received the most response from our viewers and, hopefully, has helped a lot of you get better cleaning results!

Bathroom Storage Ideas

Do you need more bathroom storage? I always do. Luckily, I found a few tips to help maximize the limited space that I have. When I moved into my current residence, I found out that the small bathroom closet was only a few inches deep. The medicine cabinet behind the mirror was the same. It was obvious that they were afterthoughts to the construction of the room and had to be fit into the width of the wall that they were set into. Now, as we all know, toilet paper is always cheaper in the 16 pack, for about a buck more you can go from 250 Q-tips to 1,000, and multi-packs of toothpaste and contact lens solution are always the best deal. Given the fact that not one bottle of contact lens solution will fit in my medicine cabinet; I had to look for other bathroom storage ideas.

To create more bathroom storage, I looked into utilizing my wasted space.

I found an over-the-toilet shelving unit at our local home store. It has adjustable legs and shelves allowing it to fit over any toilet. It is 12 inches deep and the shelves easily accommodate towels and tons of toilet paper. By adding a few aesthetic touches, you can draw the eyes of your guests away from the fact that the shelves are covered with toilet paper. It also stores my bars of soap and excess Q-tips.

Another bathroom storage tip was to purchase a small corner vanity. Because it has three shelves with doors on them, it is the perfect place to hide the bathroom necessities that we all have. We put a small plant on top and it makes a great accent piece in the wasted space that was just a small corner.

The final tip to improve your bathroom storage is to select one shelf in an adjacent room for the larger items. We keep our guest towels, the remainder of our bulk bathroom needs, and extra shampoo on the very top shelf of the bedroom’s closet that is nearest the bathroom. This serves as the primary storage for both of our bathrooms.

Now our medicine cabinet actually just contains medicine, razors, and the like. By finding better ways to utilize our wasted space in our bathroom, our bathroom storage problem is a thing of the past!

Related Posts:

• Closet Cleaning Tips 
• Reduce Clutter While Celebrating the Holidays

Make Homemade Reusable Swiffer Cloths

Jenny submitted this great tip on how to make your own washable Swiffer cloths:

We have hardwood floors throughout most of our house, and I give them a weekly dusting/cleaning with a dry Swiffer. Instead of using disposable Swifter cloths, I use old pieces of fleece. When I'm done with a room or two, I shake the cloth outside, and toss it in the wash.

There are lots of things called fleece these days; what I'm talking about is fairly thick, is sometimes called Polartec, and is 100% polyester. My pieces are probably about the weight of Polartec 200. Fleece attracts dust like a magnet, and doesn't let go.

I came to this idea because I was wearing fleece pants around the house and noticed that they got dusty and picked up flecks of "stuff"at an annoying rate. Rather than get angry, I realized the house cleaning potential, and promptly went out to Goodwill and found an old large fleece garment and cut it up. Voila!

If you have any tips, please send them using the link in the left sidebar.

Can Mayo Really Improve The Look Of Wood Furniture?

I have heard of a number of cleaning tips that just seemed too good or too weird to possibly work. This is one of them. My wife once informed me that her mother used mayonnaise to clean discolorations and marks on her wood furniture. I did not believe this to work, and doubted the concept of using an egg-based cleaning product that would surely rot or attract insects. But, in the spirit of looking for the best, the easiest, and the safest ways to clean, I had to try it. My living room table gets a lot of water marks and general wear and tear. It also has a few areas that were discolored by warm plates. I applied a very thin layer of mayo to each of the damaged areas and, as instructed, left it overnight. Surprisingly enough, it did help. It did not remove all of the marks, but it did help reduce the amount of discoloration. I have to say that for small marks or light discoloration mayo will make your wood furniture look better. It is not the best cleaning product by far, but did improve the look significantly!

Stop Those Stuck Drawers

In every apartment and home I’ve lived in, there always seems to be at least one kitchen drawer that sticks. If you live in a newer home or a have recently remodeled kitchen, this probably isn’t a problem for you. But if you don’t, you’ve probably got the old wood sliding on wood kitchen drawers and at least one that sticks. What has worked for me is to remove the drawer and repeatedly slide a bar of soap over the tops and bottoms of the sides. This will give the drawer a little lubrication. It also smells nice.

Vacuums Are For More Than Just Carpet

Floors and carpets aren’t the only thing that could do with a little vacuuming. Not long ago I was digging in the couch cushions in search of the remote which had been swallowed once again. It didn’t just slide the normal distance down, it went deep. Now, one a fairly regular basis, I clean all the little bits of crunchy snack food and what not that make their way under the cushions, but the remote had slipped into the nether regions. When I fished it out there was more than a little stuff under my finger nails than I would like to admit. So, I hauled out the vacuum and the super long nozzle attachment and really dug in. The rattle of the all the little bits of stuff coming up through the hose let me know this was area not to be neglected.

Using Coffee Grounds to Remove Tough Odors

I had to try this one to believe it. You can use fresh coffee grounds to remove tough odors from just about anything. I first heard about this as a method for removing cigarette smells from furniture. If it can do that, it can do anything. Anyone who has ever received remainder furniture from a smoker knows how difficult it is to remove the smell. To remove odors from furniture, place the furniture inside a large furniture bag with a plate covered with fresh coffee grounds. Seal, and let it sit for a few days. Remove the furniture and the grounds and the smells are gone. Coffee grounds will also remove bad odors from fridges.