Cleaning sinks

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Here is something new for you - yes, I know - I am almost up to 300 posts and have never shared this little secret with you... I like to clean. And vacume. And mop the floor. And wash dishes. And, and, and... well - you get the idea. Really. I like the smell of a clean house. And I like to consider myself pretty good at cleaning. If I can tackle the clutter I would be even better and I AM really working hard on that department.

But for the time being, let's get back to the cleaning, shall we? I am going to start sharing my cleaning tips with you all here as I think of them. And I kind-ov have to think because all these little techniques are things I really don't think about - I just do them as I go through my day and things need to be done.

The first thing about using tools for cleaning that could also be used for... say - scrubbing vegetables - is to clearly LABEL it with a Sharpie marker. So - this is my SINK brush, not to be confused with my FOOD brush. This great bristle brush is sold as a set of 2 for $1 at the Dollar Store. These are great brushes for getting spider poop off your wood floors (those little white dots that collect under pieces of furniture), the grease build-up in corners of the kitchen floor, the dirt lines around the base of the tub/toilet floor. But wait - that would be the job of the FLOOR brush, right? Oh, and they aren't so bad for scrubbing vegetables too! Hence - clearly labeling your cleaning tools is key! Besides the fact - I keep cleaning tools seperate from cooking tools, BUT you never know who else might be around, they grab something, set it down and then it gets put away in the wrong place. Yikes. And - no I don't label "K-sink" and B-sink" because really - these 2 sinks are W-A-Y far apart from each other so no worries there, but I guess I could next time I have a Sharpie in hand. But in anycase - Sharpies are cheap.

As you can see by my photo - I like a bar of soap which I keep on a little plastic soap thing (3 for $1 at the dollar store!) and Little Boy prefers the foaming soap with a pump. Fine. Anything to encourage good handwashing habits... anyone know the story of Typhoid Mary? For regular bathroom sink handwashing - I prefer any regular bar of body soap - for actually bathing - nothing can beat goat's milk soap in my opinion!

Anyway, when cleaning the sink, there is no way that a sponge will get all the soap scum/grime that collects around the very base of your faucets. Spray the area, let it soak for a few minutes, a few scrubs with the scrub brush and viola! Nice clean faucet base. I buff the fixtures so they don't have water spots. I hate water spots on fixtures!

That is it for the bathroom sink. Now the kitchen sink - that is a whole 'nother story.

Kitchen sink... have you ever brought your water to a water lab to be tested? If not - you should if you have a well - not a bad thing to know exactly what you are drinking. Anyway, if not the directions say to throughly clean your faucet with bleach and then to let the water run for 10 minutes. This does 2 things - the bleach kills the bacteria on your faucet and then running the water makes sure that there is no bleach in the water sample because if there is bleach - you won't get an accurate test result. Kill the bacteria on your faucet? That little line got me to thinking about the whole kitchen sink thing so now...

I SPRAY my kitchen sink faucet and handles with a bleach/water solution... alot. Think about it - you wash your hands, turn the sink off, cut up some chicken, wash your hands. Right? Except you turned the sink on with chicken hands/washed your hands/turned the sink off - aha! you just touched raw chicken faucet with your "clean" hands. Ew. See my point? Unless you install one of those handy-dandy foot pedals to turn the sink on with your foot- my doctors office has one of these - but I don't think one of those is coming to MY kitchen anytime soon. Besides, bleach/water and a new empty spray bottle is cheap (ummm - do I need to tell you to clearly label your new spray bottle?). And works. Kills bacteria. Sounds good to me. Yeah, I like a CLEAN kitchen sink. And faucet handles. Gotta have clean faucet handles or else - what is the point?