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heirloom kitchen 03 > clean yo sink
June 6, 2014

Both our kitchen and bathroom sinks are old cast iron behemoths. We chose them because we love them. Because they are white and cast iron, they get easily marked up. And since we’ve added these sinks to our home, one of my most frequently asked housey questions is about these sinks: how do you clean them? I learned from my friend Melanie.

A little over a year ago I went to a baby shower. We had all pitched in on several weeks worth of house cleaning. The gift was presented and our very pregnant friend was amazed and thankful. And then she said she didn’t know who to hire. A chorus broke out, singing the praises of their house cleaning fairies. They cheersed their margaritas to the bliss of knowing their tub would be scrubbed every other week. I raised my glass in solidarity.

I felt a palm press into my thigh as my friend seated next to me said, YOU have a lady?! Am I the only one? What the hell. I need to get on this train. 

We do have a cleaning lady. Although I really don’t dig calling her that. She is our Sparkling Goddess or something divinely similar. As things in my town go, she was a friend of a friend who quickly became our friend. We hired her for a spell when Margot was a baby. When we were both working outside the home full time. And then it felt extravagant to me. I talked myself out of it. I left that job. We had another baby. We moved. I worked from home and felt like I ought to keep up with the pet hair and toilets just fine. I didn’t.

A few years passed; Andy and I had a conversation over exhausted late-night beans and rice where he said, ok I think we need to either hire childcare or hire another employee for your business. We were tired. It felt too hard. We dissected our days and hypothesized on how to make it all better, easier, gentler.

During that chat, our current scenario sharpened in my brain. We need help. We need to hire someone to either care for our kids, do some of my work or…do some of our chores and free up time for us to spend with kids and on work. TA DA.

Hiring someone to clean our home wasn’t extravagant. It was brilliant. We called Melanie again. Her schedule was booked so we waited. And now we see her every other Monday for two hours when she casts sweet-smelling spells on our everyday funk.

Melanie is charming and efficient, a friend and a great help. She uses totally non-toxic supplies. Our kids, our bathtub and our marriage adore her. I am thrilled to bring Melanie into this space as our first Heirloom Kitchen contributor. Because, among her many skills (milking goats, raising kids, making body products, knitting, running a farm, always cheerful) she can make our sinks sparkle white without the use of anything toxic.

 

In Melanie’s words:

Most of my cleaning techniques have been handed down from my grandma, Shirley. As a kid, when we visited and as a young adult when I lived with her, she made sure I wasn’t sitting around too much. There were always chores to do.

She was very particular about how things got done. I’m not nearly as exact, but I have many of her little secrets that I keep in my pocket.

For sinks of all kinds, my go to product is Bon Ami cleanser. It is the only thing I will use. It doesn’t scratch and is tough enough to get dirt and most stains up easily. Especially on ceramic or cast iron sinks like Nici’s, you shouldn’t use a lot of force to your scrub. Easy gentle circles are all you need. On those stains that cleanser just won’t touch, cider vinegar or hydrogen peroxide poured full strength and left to sit usually does the trick. If you need it to sit a while, saturate a paper towel and leave it right on the stain.

Something everyone should use, in my opinion, is my homemade all-purpose cleaner that I use for shower walls, countertops, walls…pretty much everything.
in a spray bottle mix:
1/4 vinegar
3/4 water
1 tablespoon or so of Biokleen All Purpose Cleaner.

Melanie is a busy-hands kind of gal with too many projects and businesses going at any one time. Gardener’s Tiny Farm is where she shows off a few. Thank you, Melanie!

And, thank you to our friends at Earlywood Designs, sponsor of Heirloom Kitchen. Use code DIGTHISWOOD to get 10% off your purchases.

post details:
* both sinks found on craigslist
* repurposed bathroom lockers, beetle kill pine counters and ceramic light fixtures found at Home Resource
* Earlywood tools pictured: large flat saute, ironwood cutting board, long server, trifecta
* Sculpture above our kitchen sink by Kensuke Yamada. And, a sweet story about it. We have long loved his work and in 2007 I emailed him to inquire about some small pots I’d seen, hoping to save up for a gift for Andy. Months later he just gave this to me, left it at the front desk of my old work place with a note that read “Hi Nici, I’ve been in my studio in Seattle and I made this small piece for you. Hope you like it. Sorry I did not have small piece last time you called me. This is a gift. Hope you like it. Sincerely, Kensuke Yamada.” So we display our sculpture sitting atop the note.

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19 Comments


Emily Goldberg
June 6, 2014 at 2:49 PM

Is that 1/4 C vinegar, 3/4 C water?



    dig
    June 6, 2014 at 6:15 PM

    I think 1 part vinegar and 3 parts water + the cleaner. So, yes, 1/4 c and 3/4 c should work great!

lera
June 6, 2014 at 3:00 PM

Hmmm. I have a spray bottle with Biokleen + water and I have several spray bottles with vinegar + water (some infused with orange or lemon peels), but I have never thought about Biokleen + vinegar + water. Brilliant!!!



Holly
June 6, 2014 at 4:07 PM

Do you have any good suggestions for carpets and dog urine? I’ve got one old dog I love to pieces and recently moved into a rental with carpet I despise.

I try to absorb as much of the urine as possible asap and then use vinegar and baking soda, but that’s wreaked havoc on my vacuum. I use a Biokleen pet odor product, too. But nothing seems to get it all the way out.



Melanie
June 6, 2014 at 4:31 PM

Sparkling goddess?! I didn’t know a blog could make me blush. Thanks for inviting me to contribute to your beautiful online world.



    Donna
    June 7, 2014 at 8:29 PM

    Melanie- Any free time? We could use you. We’re over in fairviews. Pretty please?! My marriage will thank you too…

      Melanie
      June 9, 2014 at 6:03 PM

      Donna, we can talk. I may have very limited time available. My contact info is [email protected]

      Thanks again, Nici!

Anne
June 6, 2014 at 4:53 PM

I’ll have to give the bon ami a try. I used to be a die hard barkeeper’s friend fan, but it got an F on the EWG guide to health cleaning (amazing resource!), so my sinks have looked dingy while I look for an alternative. I hesitate to even mention it here because I don’t want to come off as judgy or worse, but you might be interested and surprised to hear that the biokleen products rank pretty poorly there (I was! Used to use their bad-out in my diaper pails religiously)–looks like the all purpose cleaner gets a D? Crazy. I started making a vin and water combo with a bit of Dr. Bronner’s peppermint added and it works really well!!



    dig
    June 6, 2014 at 6:13 PM

    Well of course we are interested to know that! Thanks for sharing and damnit.

trbholt
June 6, 2014 at 4:55 PM

Sparkling Goodness…..I love it. Edgar & Carmen are the best AND I AM WORTH THEM.
Love those sinks Burb!
xoxo



Chrissy
June 6, 2014 at 5:37 PM

I smile the whole time I read your words. I wish you were my mom. I appreciate your honesty about having a sparkle goddess. My house looks like a dog hair, crappy mess and I can never justify getting a goddess of my own. Thanks for the permission and happy Friday. XOXO Chrissy



    dig
    June 6, 2014 at 6:12 PM

    Well, do it mama! We are on a tight budget and pretty easily found the $80 per month. Cheaper than therapy and just as effective. It is such a gift to our family and we happily forgo some other expenses to keep it alive. Happy Friday back at cha. x

Stacey
June 6, 2014 at 10:06 PM

Hiring help of various kinds can definitely be a gift for the whole family! It took me quite a while to give myself permission to have someone else help us clean, but I am now so grateful for the gift our “sparkling goddess” is. My favorite part is that she gets my kids involved too. They are learning from a woman who is passionate and proud of her work, and I love that she is so willing to have little sidekicks while she is in our home. The best!



Lexie Hickey
June 7, 2014 at 7:29 PM

I admire Melanie so much, and I adore how much you appreciate her! She is a woman of many talents. I feel so fortunate to be one of their CSA recipients. I am eating better than ever thanks to her!



finny
June 10, 2014 at 5:48 AM

Bubba and I agree about Flora – our cleaning goddess. She is a marriage/business/lifestyle saver. She gives us back time to do the things we really want to do, which sometimes does include really deep cleaning the kitchen, polishing the bathroom fixtures or other householdy things that I’d never get to if we were also trying to keep the furicane of hairs under normal control.

LOVE HER.

And I was so thrilled to see the promo code for the Earlywood utensils that I ran over there and treated myself to a little graduation gift. I suddenly really want to make soup.



Tammi
June 11, 2014 at 5:42 AM

This was our scenario, too. I finally gave myself permission about 1-1/2 years ago to hire someone to clean the house every week. It does seem extravagant from the outset, BUT it has helped us out in so many ways. The mood in our house shifted, our home felt calm and orderly and the floors (oh, how I hate to clean floors) have never been cleaner. With all that we juggle, acknowledging that we needed to hire someone to help us was the best decision for our family. Kuddos to you for sharing.



Alannah
June 12, 2014 at 2:06 PM

I love and appreciate your honesty about having a “sparkling goddess” – for those of us who know you only through your blog or IG, it’s refreshing to have a little more insight when wondering “how does she DO IT ALL?”

This frees you up a little to be the fully-engaged, hands-on mother that I admire so much.



CMB
June 19, 2014 at 8:34 AM

I am shocked to hear you have a cleaning lady!! I would have never guessed. Makes me love you even more, actually. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, words, and life! You encourage me to be a better Mama and more in-tune with nature and my surroundings 🙂



sam-c
June 26, 2014 at 2:00 PM

I like this post. thank you. I’ve always been insecure about my cleaning, not having learned much from my mom who was not able to stay on top of it either. going to other mom’s houses for new mom groups back in the day, I was always amazed at everyone’s clean houses. then I found out the secret. they have’ cleaning ladies’, ‘sparkle princess.’ I don’t think it should be a secret (just like I don’t think miscarriages should be ‘secret’ either but now I am going off the rails). maybe it seems like people keep it a secret because it seems like we should be able to handle it all? but we can’t!
even found out several friends have help in cleaning. when our family is able to fit in the budget, we will definitely get some help!



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