Every week I have coffee with my best girls at one of our houses, and one of them recently asked me how best to clean her coffee grinder. Here’s a method that will not only clean the grinder, but will also sharpen the blades!

• Grind up about a cup of raw, uncooked rice. The first round may look a bit like salt and pepper when it’s done. If that’s the case, go ahead and run more rice through the grinder until the results are all white.
• Dump the rice grounds and brush out the interior with a dry, stiff-bristle paint brush.
• Go ahead and wipe out the removable plastic pieces and either wash them in warm soapy water by hand or in the top section of your dishwasher.
• You may want to grind a small amount of coffee to be thrown away or composted before the grinder’s next use, just to make sure all the rice particles have made their way out of your blend.

This week’s Mosaic Mention is gonna be short and sweet. I recently got some feedback from a young professional that she would be very interested in having me come and Co-Clean™ with her, but that my present hours (M-Th, 8 – 5) were making that impossible for her as they conflicted with her own work hours. It’s valid feedback. And so, I’ll be extending my hours to accommodate her as well as anyone else who’s had a similar thought in the very near future. I’m not sure exactly what they will look like – Perhaps more evening availability? Or maybe a day of weekend openings twice each month?

Which would be most helpful to you? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear your opinion!

(cc) LightSwitch Creative

Whether you’re cleaning your home every week or only have energy for a deep clean a few times per year, remember to take care of these often neglected spots:

1. Under the Stovetop - If you have a traditional gas or electric stove, did you know that your stovetop lifts up similar to the way a car hood does? Remove the grates (gas) or burners (electric), and you should be able to just pop that whole top surface up by applying upward pressure in the place where the surface behind the knobs changes to the cooktop. It should hinge at the back and either hold itself up with springs or posts, allowing you to use your favorite kitchen cleaning products to get rid of all those bits of food that have fallen into the abyss.

2. Shower Head - Maybe you have a fancy shower head with some special features that you just love, or maybe you have the one that came with your apartment or house. Chances are, it’s not spraying like it used to. That’s because calcium and lime and the same things that leave your sinks, tubs and toilets looking dull have built up in all those little tiny holes. There are a couple of different ways I clean this. While you could take the shower head off and soak it briefly in some CLR (don’t forget the teflon tape to avoid leaks when you go to put it back on!), I don’t think that’s really necessary unless the flow is really obstructed. Instead, I use Zud (or vinegar and baking soda for my Green Cleaning clients) and a toothbrush to keep shower heads clean.

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With much of the country battened down under the great freeze, who’s not going a little stir crazy with cabin fever right now? Even I, who really enjoys being at home am starting to go a little nuts. It’s hard to be productive when you’re not really even sure you want to get out from under your covers!

So how does this Columbus cleaning lady beat the winter blues? Personally, I fight them by giving to others. For me it starts with this week’s Mosaic Mention: laundry. And I hate laundry…

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So I’ve set a new goal for myself this year: at least 1 blog article each week. It may be a long post, but could be just a short mention of another product, Columbus business or cleaning tip. It doesn’t matter which, but a post-a-week it is. It’s your job to help keep me honest.

This week’s Mosaic Mention? Ceiling fans. How many of us run our ceiling fans all summer, turn them off in the fall when it gets chilly, take one look at the giant streaming dust-bunny and turn them right back on again? Never mind all that dust they’re tossing into the air. I mean, if you can’t see it, it’s not there, right? Well, here’s a quick and easy way to clean your ceiling fans.

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So uh… I just found out that our main Mosaic Cleaning company email address was broken! Who knows how long it’s been that way or exactly how it happened. The important thing is that we know NOW and have fixed it. So, if you’ve tried to get in touch with me recently via email or the website and I was completely unresponsive, I apologize. Trust me, I value your feedback and potential business. Give it a try again. I’d love to connect!

I have a regular gig to Co-Clean™ with my pal, Laney*.  A Co-Clean™ is a great way to maximize your time and energy toward the goal of house-sparkliness. Here’s what the formula for your Co-Clean™ would look like, if one existed:

You + Me x 1 hour = about the same effect as me cleaning 3 hours on my own or you cleaning house all day on your own.  Or thereabouts….it’s a formula in progress.

A little background on the concept of the Co-Clean™… Laney was looking for an economical and time efficient way to keep her house clean.  She’s a busy woman, whose schedule can be all over the place, making it hard to dedicate an afternoon every week or a day every month to the chores of vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing the toilet etc…  She’s also an entrepreneur whose budget isn’t quite there in terms of farming it all out to Mosaic Cleaning. So we came to an agreement where I will come over on a regular basis and the two of us will tackle what needs to be done, all in about an hour. This is a brilliant concept for a few reasons:

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So.  Business has been a little slow. I understand… the economy and all that. Paying a locally-owned cleaning company to do what one can probably do oneself can seem counter intuitive. But I know that I provide a valuable service, if not in saved time alone, then in terms of stimulating the local economy: I get paid by you, then I go to places like the Clintonville Farmer’s Market for some picked-today Acorn Squash, or Beechwold Hardware for another bottle of Zud. Then I use said Zud to make your bathroom sparkle, you pay me again and I head to Northstar Café to split a breakfast burrito with my significant other. And so on and so on.

I know that eventually, I will have a client base that understands and appreciates not only what I do for them, but what they are doing for Clintonville and greater Columbus. But until then, I have to find ways to fill my schedule with paid work. Canning my own tomatoes is great and all, but I’ll need more than a few jars of sauce to make it through the winter

So, in an effort to drum up cleaning business, I will be canvassing a neighborhood where I currently have a couple of clients. I’m distributing flyers door-to-door to encourage anyone who has ever thought of bringing a stranger, albeit a stranger recommended by their neighbors, into their home for a couple of hours at a time to whip things into shape. When I figure out how to create the link, I will post a link to the postcard, which I have so lovingly and thoughtfully designed for just this purpose.

Will some of these postcards be trashed immediately by their recipients? Most assuredly so. But my hope is that just enough of you will see past the monetary outlay to the bigger picture, and divert some of your hard-earned dollars my way. Then my hard-earned dollars go into making our community stronger. Win-win all around.

Wish me luck with my endeavor. I love the customers I already have, I just need a dozen more like them!

“What’s In My kit?”

My cleaning kit consists of the items I take on every clean.  I’ll post my green clean caddy contents in a later post. Here are the regular cleaning products and materials I use on a daily basis:

Caddy – Some say a cleaning apron is better, but I definitely like my caddy. The caddy is great because you can store all your items in one place, it’s light enough to carry around, and once you establish your routine, it keeps you organized and focused. I have separate caddies for my regular cleans and my green cleans. You want a caddy that’s big enough to hold at least 3 spray bottles, a can of Pledge, 5-6 rags, 4 sponges, 2 slim bottles a toothbrush, a scrub brush and a cup.

I got mine from (gasp!) Target. I couldn’t find an exact link on the Target site. Cost: approximately $10. Here’s a similar one: http://www.organize.com/utility-caddy-large-blue.html

Bucket – standard 2.5 gallon variety pail with a handle. Cost: approximately $10. My bucket carries my knee pads to and from the clean. I use it during the clean when I mop floors. Here’s one similar to mine: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dgarden&field-keywords=bucket

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Don’t think you’re ready to commit to having a professional cleaner come in for you? We can do a Co-Clean™ too. What the heck is a Co-Clean™? That’s where we come in, work with you to decide what house cleaning needs to be done, and split the housework with you… So you perhaps will take the kitchen or bedrooms while we take the bathroom and living room. Our Co-Clean™ customers love it both because it’s economical and motivating to them to have a friend come over and help tackle the bi-weekly or monthly cleaning monster!