Cleaning & Organizing
Princess_Lily
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Q. re: Cleaning an Outdated Home
We have an outdated home.
Whenever I clean the older parts of the home (common areas), it smells clean and there isn't any clutter, but it seems to never *look* clean enough to me. The floor tiles, some of the appliances, heck some of the walls are old and quite outdated, cracked, etc.
There isn't any major damage to these things, but it gets quite frustrating on cleaning day because I would love a nice clean look...but I can't get it the way I want.
Is it just me, or is cleaning an outdated home a daunting task?
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Re: Q. re: Cleaning an Outdated Home
i don't think of homes as "outdated"... to me a style is outdated.... homes just get old.
My home is 86yo and yes, when we clean certain parts- they don't look clean... we're used to it after 6+yrs living here.
You either repair/re-do the parts that bother you- or you get used to it... or you move
I think I meant to say the "style".
Thank God the home doesn't need repairs, its just cosmetically bothersome.
I just always wondered why I got so annoyed when it was cleaning day.
I know what you mean. Our landlord must have rushed through the bathroom renovation, and the paint job is terrible (matte and starting to crack/flake), there are drips everywhere (on the floor, toilet, etc.), the floor tile wasn't laid very well, the tub wasn't re-grouted/re-caulked and it's seen better days...on and on. It never looks great when I'm done cleaning in there, but I've made peace with it.
I agree with PP; if I owned it, I would probably re-do the things that bother me.
I don't have an older home but I still have to ditto Goldie. You either need to get used to it or update.
OP, I felt this exact way in our previous (rented) house. The walls all had cracks in them. The floor tiles just looked dingy at all times. Like a PP mentioned, in some rooms there were paint splotches in various places, bad caulking, etc.
Since it was a rental I just sucked it up, but when we bought a new house I kept this in mind. I need a place that "feels clean" to me after I finish cleaning.
After living in our first house together, I've definitely noticed some things like that which will influence my decision on our next house (DH hopefully getting a new position soon in another state!). My house doesn't usually "feel clean" to me and it drives me up a wall. Especially because the bathrooms are the worst, and besides the kitchen I really like a clean-feeling bathroom!
For some awful reason whoever redid the bathrooms decided to do a really horrible job at plastering the walls instead of just doing drywall like any sane person would do. And like others have said, the paint jobs are just atrocious with drips all over the place. Such a messy job, and I wish we could fix it but we don't have the money for home improvement right now!
We live in an apartment (which I realize is not the same as buying a house), but I get your sentiment. The baseboards never look clean because they're painted a horrid off-white, so they look dingy. The carpets have stains on them that I can't get out from the previous renter's dog. The bathtub can be freshly scrubbed, but it still looks soap scummy.
I can't wait to buy. We may not be able to afford a brand new home, but it's so what I want so everything is clean and sparkly when we move in
I rent and I totally can relate. I'm forever scraping old paint globs out of corners and off floor boards.
I have found that a magic eraser is very helpful as are rust remover and sometimes, paint.
I do my best, but its not like I'm going to pay to refinish the floors, ya know?
I totally agree that it's so much harder to clean an outdated house. There is a difference between old and outdated. I've seen historic homes that were old, but everything was refinished or refurbished and they looked beautiful.
The house we used to rent was just plain outdated. Everything was so old, stained, cracked, that no matter how much I cleaned, it still looked dingy.