Cleaning

NBD wants to be the next big cleaning brand. But right now, NBD is literally no big deal—because it doesn’t exist yet. If you search this startup cleaning brand’s name, the first page is all unrelated results like one from Urban Dictionary that defines the internet acronym NBD as “no big deal.

Some people enjoy cleaning, and for various reasons. It could be the feeling of accomplishment or being able to exert a small but tangible amount of control over their environment. Or it might be something as simple as catching a thrill from vacuum lines in the carpet. I’ve never heard of anyone who likes dusting, though. Dusting, of course, is essential to any well-thought-out cleaning regimen. And when left undone, it’s not only unsightly, but can lead to allergy attacks.

Sent by AngelaEditor: First try using a pink eraser to remove the mark. If the marker stain proves stubborn, a mixture of 1 part isopropyl rubbing alcohol with 2 parts water (you make have to tweak this proportions) can also remove the stain.Ironically, using a black dry erase marker over the permanent marker can also help remove Sharpies marks, due to the solvent in the formula!Leave any additional suggestions for Angela in the comments below.

As hard as one might try to piece together the perfect kitchen, if you find yourself with an uncontrollable mound of dishes, that perfect kitchen ends up looking like a pile of mess. But is every spoon, fork, cup and plate in the sink absolutely essential? Can you really cut down the amount of dishes you do every day, without using disposables? Yes! Here are five places to start. 1. Own fewer dishes.

Q: A few years ago I DIYed an upholstered headboard for our queen-sized bed. Since then, we’ve moved into our own house and are looking at finally upgrading to a California king, as my partner is 6’5″ and has never slept on a bed that his feet didn’t dangle off of. In looking for a new mattress, we’ve also started considering a new headboard.

Q: My house—over 150 years old—has one room that is different than the others…my living room has an “old” smell. The kitchen on the same level has no odor. There is NO crawlspace for these rooms. Back when the house was built, they used white oak logs to support a room added-on. We’ve had a lot of rain lately, and no, we do not have gutters.

If you’ve been playing in the garden and find your Hunter boots covered in all the offerings of spring, they may be lookin’ worse for wear. Keeping them clean and tidy may seem as easy as jumping in a puddle, but high quality rubber requires just a bit more attention than your basic rain galoshes.

Congratulations! You’ve just removed that ugly label from your prized possession, but now you’re faced with a new problem: sticky residue from said label. What’s the quickest and easiest way to make it disappear? Don’t worry, we’ve got your back- just start walking towards the pantry.

Yes, marble is a stone, but it is surprisingly soft which makes it very susceptible to damage. Minimize the risk of scratches by avoiding using tools like a metal spatula blade or butter knife to remove sticky residue. Try this tip instead: Cooking oil (canola or olive work great!) 1. Pour a good amount of oil over the sticky residue and lightly work it in with your finger.

Plop plop, fizz fizz — oh how easy it is! Whip up a batch of these fizzy-fresh toilet tablets and say goodbye to the harsh chemical cleaners. 1 cup baking soda 1/2 cup citric acid 40-60 drops of essential oil (we recommend Rosemary, Peppermint, Tea Tree, or Lavender) Water Silicone or non-stick baking mold Medium bowl Mixing spoon Our tablets contain just a few simple ingredients and are essentially bath bombs.

As much as we love the cleaning tools and hacks that promise to make cleaning as quick and painless as possible, there’s no real substitute for our own eyes and hands. Getting down on hands and knees and mopping the old-fashioned, bucket-and-rag way results in a detailed kind of clean that no other method provides and that, every once in a while, is so worth it. When you get yourself on a different level, you’ll see things that haven’t been cleaned in a very long time.

This quick trick instantly delivers more space—just by raiding your utensil drawer.

I hate to toss around tired old adages, but the truth of the matter is that taking care of a problem when it’s small is far easier than addressing a bigger problem once it’s grown. “Stitching in time” is particularly relevant when it comes to home-keeping—where procrastination, like not sweeping dirt from hardwood floors, can lead to major tasks like eventually refinishing your scratched-up floor.

Disposable products may be cheap and convenient, but there’s a cost associated with throwing out all that material. Many items have alternate uses and longer lives than just the one use their makers intended. Instead of throwing them away, get the most you can out of the following six things. Aluminum Foil: After using tin foil to cover the casserole, save it and use it again around the house. Alternate uses range from getting rid of rust to homemade funnels.

Whether you’re just pulling out your sweaters or putting them away for the season, a moth repellent is key to making your winter wools last. Forget the stinky, toxic moth balls—and who really has the space for a cedar closet? What you need is good smelling, tiny alternative, and we’ve got just the thing!

Scents play a pretty significant role in my home, and I’m always searching for the perfect combo of comfort, cleanliness, and freshness. Creating your own room diffusers allow you the opportunity to make exactly the fragrance you are looking for — and it’s way more cost effective than what you’ll find in a boutique. bamboo skewers or paper straws Essential Oils 1/4 cup water 1/4 cup vodka 1/3 cup mineral oil Vase or similar container 1.

Whether you’re working to get stains out of an old, neglected marble mantlepiece, or rust stains out of a newer marble shower, the method remains the same. Marble is a porous material — as is our skin, and like our skin when we have a wound, making a poultice to draw the stain out of your marble works in just the same way making a poultice to draw out infection in a wound would. The recipe may vary depending on the stain, but the poultice method is consistent.

It's not magic, it's science.

I went to the dentist today and you know what that means! Yep, another new toothbrush—which means I get to promote (demote?) the one I’m using to my cleaning arsenal. Toothbrushes are the best little tools for cleaning small spaces like window tracks, shower tracks, around the faucets, the drains in the sink, the seams between the vertical and horizontal surfaces of the counter, grout, and so much more.

Spring cleaning is (almost) upon us! Whether you’re hoping to declutter your cabinets or make a switch to more eco-friendly cleaning products, liquid concentrates could be your new best friend. Versatile cleaners that can be diluted at home in reusable spray bottles, these multi-taskers boast a number of benefits. Instead of buying separate products for each household cleaning need, you can save time, space, energy and money by just using one, powerful concentrate.

And what about bar soap? Or laundry detergent?

Bleach is a strong cleanser that, when used properly, can be a safe and effective option for sanitizing various objects and surfaces in your kitchen, in the laundry and around your house. “But it’s not an all-purpose cleaner,” says Nancy Boc, senior vice president of education at the American Cleaning Institute.

Any tool that multitasks in the kitchen means less wasted space and more bang for your buck. A gadget with a specific use has to be downright amazing for me to give up kitchen real estate to it. (A strawberry huller falls under that category in our family, and gets used several times a week in the summer.) But multitasking isn’t a trait reserved just for kitchen tools that fit in cupboards and drawers.

We polled some of our favorite cleaning, organizing, and design experts on what messy spots they might pick up on in others' homes.

I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I am that the Year of the Dog is almost over. For Chinese people, the year of one’s zodiac sign is traditionally the unluckiest year for them with warnings of trouble and danger at every turn. So as a Dog person, I am looking forward to welcoming that first day of the Year of the Pig (February 5) with all the new positive energy that comes with it. But first, I have to sweep the past year away—literally.

We have a storage trick for your brooms, mops, dusters, and other handheld housekeeping tools.

If you've ever ruined a fancy blouse with an iron that sputters icky water, you're smart to be a little paranoid.

Kitchen counters are clutter magnets—plain and simple. As I look at my own countertops, I see seven-ish different piles in the works (kids’ art, unopened mail, recyclables on their way to the bin, etc.). It’s never-ending. And despite being a fairly organized, clean-surface kind of girl myself, and literally interviewing dozens of experts on the subject, there are only two times my countertops ever get clean. Oh, is it midnight the night before an article is due?

Just like “little drops of water make a mighty ocean,” it’s those tiny habits you keep around your home that make sure it’s tidy and spotless every day. Cleanliness begets cleanliness, but disorder begets more of the unwelcome same; it’s much easier to stack papers on an already existing pile than on a spotless horizontal surface, for instance. So you could always stand to start a new tidy home habit or two. And why not use the new year to do it?

Even if you ignore the pull to reevaluate your past year and make lofty promises to yourself for the year to come, you probably can’t help but feel a bit of a fresh-slate feeling with the recent turn of the calendar page. You know what stays the same year after year, though? Your household chores. But they don’t have to. Now’s as good a time as any to inject some of that new year pep-in-your-step to the household tasks that could just as easily drag you down this time of year.

There are no gimmicks here—just genius hacks that'll keep your home sparkling all year long.

Let’s face it—doing the dishes is one of the worst chores there is. But it’s often the people who can’t stand doing the dishes who are the best at avoiding them—by getting them done most efficiently. That’s exactly why I reached out for advice from people who don’t have a dishwasher and just absolutely hate doing the dishes.

In my experience, there are two kinds of dishwasher users: people who have figured out the right way to load the dishwasher, and people who really don’t care. Also in my experience, those two camps of people tend to marry each other and spend the rest of their lives complaining about the other’s method of loading or critiquing the other’s loading technique (sorry, husband of mine).

For most of us, it’s standard practice to clean before guests come over. We want them to feel welcome and comfortable in our house and we honor their presence by creating a general air of order and cleanliness. And on the other hand, we certainly don’t want to be judged for our dusty baseboards and the inside-out socks that seem to always be peppered throughout the house. But there’s more.

For as much as we tidy up around our homes, how often are we really giving our place a good old-fashioned deep clean? We called on housecleaning expert Jennifer Gregory, Brand Manager of Molly Maid, a Neighborly company, for suggestions on what tasks you should absolutely cover to consider your clean a truly thorough one.

Believe it or not, squeeze bottle tops—you know, the inexpensive plastic ones you use on bottles of condiments—are actually quite versatile. Along with dispensing ketchup, mustard, or salad dressing, we’ve discovered an unexpected way to use them to better clean your home, too. These commonplace bottle tops can make deep cleaning your home a whole lot easier if you use them like a makeshift vacuum attachment.

Turns out that your favorite go-to canola oil spray for non-stick cooking, like Pam Cooking Spray, also has some pretty stellar uses outside of the kitchen, too. Don’t believe us? Read ahead for a handful of surprisingly savvy ways to use cooking spray in your bathroom—yes, your bathroom—no skillet or cookie pans necessary. Who knew cooking spray could tackle soap scum buildup in your bathtub, shower, and sink?

Besides, you know, cleaning your dishes, your dishwasher can do a few other fun things.

You know how to clean a kitchen. So do I. But there are things we learned from our parents, shortcuts we developed ourselves, and just straight-up habits that may make our cleaning, well, less than optimal. Heck, half the time I research a story, I learn I’ve been doing something wrong my whole adult life!

Being an adult means tackling things we’d rather not do, and that is especially true when it comes to certain household chores. According to a new survey compiled by the American Cleaning Institute, over half of Americans rank this task their most hated out of all of them—do you agree? When it comes to cleaning tasks people dread cleaning the most, the top answer is (understandably) the bathroom, which scored 52 percent of the vote.

I hate to be the bearer of stressful-yet-delicious news, but the American holiday of Thanksgiving is just about 10 days away. Luckily, 10 days is plenty of time to ready both your appetite and your home. If you’re hosting Thanksgiving this year, this list is a lifeline for staying on top of things and avoiding that frantic day-before energy.

Look, we know when you get home after a long day of work the last thing you want to think about is cleaning, but like it or not, it’s a great time to get a little light housekeeping done. If you commit yourself to cleaning a small handful of things before you change out of your work clothes, you’ve got yourself some instant motivation and the opportunity to set yourself up for a calm (and clean) evening of chilling at home.

A good household cleaner can make housekeeping a breeze. But a good household cleaner that only costs five bucks or less? Well, that’s a game-changer for your home. To help make your housekeeping endeavors go more smoothly (and affordably), we rounded up the best commercial cleaning products under $5.

Window cleaner can be a game-changer for your housekeeping routine. Along with cleaning everything from your windows to your shower tile, this bright blue household staple is slightly less abrasive than most other multi-purpose sprays—making it great for use on more fragile surfaces. Unfortunately, however, there are some things you should never use window cleaner on, no matter how contradictory it may seem.

If you thought reusable cupcake liners were only good for baking, then think again. Turns out those colorful silicone cups, like these rainbow-hued cuties by AmazonBasics, are awesome for cleaning and organizing stuff around your home, too. Don’t believe us? Read on for a bunch of ways you can use (and reuse) silicone baking cups outside of the oven. Searching for a cute and inexpensive way to streamline your workstation?

Keeping your home organized on a limited budget is never easy. But what if we told you that we’d discovered a $4 buy on Amazon that can instantly create extra storage space in just about every room of your home? Believe it or not, suction holders for sponges, like this one from Amazon, can work wonders for over-cluttered and storage-deprived areas throughout your home, all it takes is a little imagination.

Raise your hand if you have a household chore that you just love to do. Even if you hate cleaning, you probably have your hand in the air. There’s always something. I love, love, love using the Shop-Vac. It’s incredibly satisfying to watch it cut a swathe through dust and dirt, swooshing everything up into its roaring nozzle. I can Shop-Vac all day long, and I always claim the job when we’re doing a big project. I even picked one out as a Valentine’s Day present once.

There is something in your kitchen that’s a super-cleaning agent, and you’re probably not using it often enough. And that’s silly — because it’s free (or almost free). That super cleaner is hot, hot water, and it costs about $0.0005 a gallon even in New York City, where everything is expensive! Few stains or debris stand a chance against super hot water, and it disinfects surfaces, too.

If you’re afraid of the luxury of having something nice like a leather sofa, we’re here to put your fears at rest. Leather is a performance material, and fortunately you don’t have to work hard to maintain it. “People make the mistake of assuming that because leather is more expensive, it requires more care—when it’s just the opposite,” says Whitney Tinsley, Moore & Giles‘ Director of Education. “Leather is meant to be lived in.

You can actually get your slow cooker to clean itself.

It might sound like something straight out of “Downton Abbey”or “The Crown,” but you need a clothes valet. No, it’s not a butler you can tell your deepest secrets to as he fastens your cufflinks. But it is going to make getting dressed—and by extension, your mornings—a bit more luxurious and a lot more smooth. A clothes valet is a tall piece of furniture, usually about the size of a full-length mirror, that holds your clothes for the next day.

One extremely valuable feature of Amazon—one that takes some of the uncertainty out of buying many things sight-unseen—is the power of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of user reviews. When at item has pages upon pages of high-star ratings, it’s almost impossible not to check it out. Especially when it’s touted as a miracle cure-all for all your cleaning conundrums. Bar Keeper’s Friend is one of those.

If you moved in a rush, you probably just tossed everything in a box. But while you’re setting up the bathroom in a shiny new apartment, one look at your shower curtain liner sends you into a panic: You suddenly notice the bottom of the liner is brown or gray or cloudy. When was the last time you cleaned this curtain? If you have to ask, then it’s time to treat yourself and your new space to a fresh curtain liner.

Believe it or not, there’s a big mistake most people are making when they clean. Not cleaning your home from top to bottom—a.k.a. dusting first and leaving sweeping and mopping for last—can have some major consequences for your housekeeping routine. Don’t believe us? We called on cleaning expert Kadi Dulude, owner of Wizard of Homes NYC, to help us break down the benefits of cleaning your home from top to bottom. Read ahead to see what she had to say.

A few years ago, I learned a trick that changed my life. No, seriously, it was a complete game-changer in the care of my kitchen sink. This is a tip you’ll shrug off and then eventually grudgingly try. And then you’ll say, “Oh man, that was so easy and awesome! Why didn’t I do that sooner?” The key, my friends, to the most shiny and luxuriously polished stainless steel sink, is very cheap, very simple, and very weird: flour. Why would you want to polish your sink?

I’ve been cleaning my house according to this room-by-room cleaning schedule for years. When I keep up with it, my house looks perpetually clean. But (spoiler alert!) I don’t always manage to keep up with it. And I’ve begun to wonder if a particular shift in my routine could save me time and give me the impetus to finish my daily tasks. The room-by-room method works well enough.

Many of us are familiar with the trick of microwaving sponges to help disinfect them. Although that practice has been thrust into the spotlight and put under scrutiny lately. Turns out that microwaving sponges only kills the worst of the bacteria they harbor; the other microbes quickly recolonize the sponge and it’s as bad as it ever was, ewww. But there is a reason to microwave your rags, one that sidesteps the whole question of how to keep your kitchen cloths sanitary.

Forgive my hyperbole, but I firmly believe the very best thing you can do for your home is to clear the kitchen each night. It’s the heart of your home—and the place you’ll make your coffee in the morning—so you want to keep that heart healthy and happy. Sometime after dinners have been made (and a few bites of ice cream have been taken straight from the freezer), but before you turn in for the night, take a quick 20 or so minutes to clear your kitchen of its daily mess.

I grew up in a pristine home. I don’t mean to say that it was fancy — it wasn’t — but it was spotless from the fan blades down to the baseboards. This was no easy feat, considering our house was a century old and so had the unique ability to create dust after you had just wiped down that surface (whatever that surface happened to be).

Not only can a good stain remover save your garments, carpet, and upholstery from unsightly spills and stains, they also work to keep your stuff looking fresh and new for longer. That’s why it’s important to always have a handful of solid stain removers on hand, so you can rescue your goods from blemishes before it’s too late. So to help make your life, or at least laundry day, go more smoothly, we rounded up the top-rated stain removers on the market.

One of the trade-offs of living in a big city is small living quarters in exchange for easy access to culture and nightlife. I live in an itty-bitty studio apartment on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. Space is at a premium, and to make the best use of my square footage, I own quite a bit of Lucite (or acrylic) furniture and home accessories. The see-through material looks chic and doesn’t take up a lot of visual room.

The logic should make sense: smaller spaces are easier to clean, right? In reality, small spaces, and even tiny houses, come with their own set of cleaning challenges. If you convert a trailer into a tiny house, you can expect plenty of dirt, grass, and leaves to be tracked in—300 square feet likely doesn’t allow for a mudroom. Since every inch is utilized in a tiny house, that means each surface is prone to messes.

Let’s face it: Pretty much everything at IKEA feels like a steal thanks to their perennially super low prices. But that doesn’t mean we still aren’t stoked to discover that the mega-retailer offers a slew of cleaning and organizing items you can take home for just $1. That’s right. A buck. For less than a cup of coffee, you can score an assortment of awesome housekeeping tools that are every bit as stylish as they are inexpensive. Don’t believe us?

I’m not typically squeamish when it comes to bugs. Until they get inside my house where they don’t belong, that is. The creepiest are usually those teeny tiny ones—like springtails—that are so hard to see I start getting paranoid that they’re everywhere. Springtails are minuscule wingless bugs found all throughout North America that thrive in dark, damp places.

Keeping the kitchen clean is hard work. Every single day, multiple times a day, you spill food across the floors and countertops. You chuck crusty dishes into the sink. You splatter sauce or grease. And the effort of keeping it all spic and span— all that wiping, sweeping, and scrubbing! — can get totally tedious day in and day out.

Soap scum and water marks are ubiquitous in most showers and baths. So often we treat them as an inevitable nuisance that is hidden from most eyes and that we address when we deep clean the bathroom, have guests coming, or just can’t take it anymore. And then we look for quick fixes and hacks like the baggie method to tackle the clinging grime (nothing wrong with that!).

I’ve written a lot about dusting, but like a doctor who stops for Krispy Kreme on the way to work, I have some blind spots when it comes to this one part of homekeeping. Namely, I’m not the best at staying on top of dusting the hard-to-reach spots in my home. Not that it doesn’t bother me that the tops of my built-ins and kitchen cabinets are coated with a thin coating of dust (ok, more than a thin coating).

The magic of IKEA pieces is not only in their well-thought-out, small-space-maximizing design, but in the numerous ways each versatile piece can be repurposed and hacked. Here are four ways to transform one of our very favorite IKEA staples, the VARIERA bag dispenser, into more than meets the eye.

Welcome to Apartment Therapy’s Chore-Free Summer. Every weekday until July 20, we’re arming you with time-saving shortcuts and hacks that’ll help you work smarter, not harder, when it comes to homekeeping this summer. Because cleaning doesn’t have to be a chore. This post is the last day of our chore-free summer series, to get the rest of the posts go here.

I recently learned something that totally blew my mind: you uh… actually don’t need soap to wash your dishes. Or at least, that’s what one cleaning brand called Goodbye Detergent claims, thanks to their Original Spaghetti Scrub. Spaghetti Scrubs are an environmentally friendly sponge alternative.

Welcome to Apartment Therapy’s Chore-Free Summer. Every weekday until July 20, we’re arming you with time-saving shortcuts and hacks that’ll help you work smarter, not harder, when it comes to homekeeping this summer. Because cleaning doesn’t have to be a chore. Not all kitchen messes are created equal. But whether you’re a dedicated home cook or somebody who has local takeout joints’ phone numbers saved as favorites, you still have to clean up after yourself.

Welcome to Apartment Therapy’s Chore-Free Summer. Every weekday until July 20, we’re arming you with time-saving shortcuts and hacks that’ll help you work smarter, not harder, when it comes to homekeeping this summer. Because cleaning doesn’t have to be a chore. Cleaning the bathroom is an oft-reviled chore, and for very good reason. You’re forced to get intimate with your filth—and the filth of the people you live with.