Spring Cleaning

I actually got quite a few things accomplished this weekend, so I will have a follow up post at some point soon.

One of the things that I tackled was cleaning our deck. I had actually swept and rinsed the deck yesterday before using a deck cleaner on it today. This green algae had attacked the deck this Spring. Actually, I had been seeing this stuff on everything recently.

Before:

I got this spray on deck wash from Home Depot that you connect to the garden hose and spray on. You are supposed to leave it for 10 minutes. I also used a scrub brush to put some elbow grease into it (sorry for looking like a hot mess in these photos). Just as an FYI, using elbow grease is much better on decks than power washing, which can damage the wood and make it harder for stains and sealants to work.

You could actually see the algae coming off the wood and being pushed by the brush.

I then rinsed off the deck and let it dry. Admittedly, I didn't get it looking perfect, but it looks a lot better.

See, no green (well, except the parsley). I have thought about staining and sealing it, but that just feels like more work than I would really like to put into it. We'll see.

I also decided to give the shower a deep clean. The grout lines weren't looking too hot.

I first took care of cleaning the grate and pipe, which can get kind of nasty over time.

I then saw this trick on youtube of using duct tape over the grate and then filling up the shower with a bleach solution.

There's water and bleach in the shower (hard to see).

I let it sit for about 2 hours and then let it drain. After it drained, I noticed we had a shower monster lurking in the pipes, so I fished it out. What is a shower monster you ask? Well, it's what happens when you have a female in the household. It's basically a soap-scummed ball of hair, and it's really gross. The best way to fish them out is with a bent hangar. And if you let it go, you will eventually have water draining problems.

After everything had been cleaned and dried out, I sealed the grout and tile again. It's a simple wipe on solution you can pick up in the tile section of home improvement stores and will protect against future mold and mildew.

I have to say, I am pretty tired at this point. Cleaning can be tiring!

We also did some fun things this weekend as well - we saw Star Trek 2 (awesome) and saw some friends on Saturday. And this morning, we made it to church again, which was good (since it's been a few weeks). I hope you all had great weekends!