Homemade Household Cleaning Supplies

Do you ever have days where you just look around your house and feel discouraged? Yesterday I was having one of those days. It seems like no matter how hard I work at cleaning, my little munchkins manage to make it look like I didn’t clean it at all (within minutes I tell ya). I had done a deep kitchen clean just a few days ago and already had tons of smudges on our appliances, a dirty floor, dishes everywhere, and to top it off a carton of strawberries had leaked all over my granite countertops and made a huge bright pink stain. I wanted to cry.

I did what all good women do when they are overwhelmed and I sat down to check Facebook on my phone before I started my plan of attack. Without even meaning to search for it, I ended up jumping from link to link and got sucked into a few blog comments and miraculously discovered a “fix” for the granite stain AND a recipe for a laminate floor cleaner. Two things that were weighing heavily on my mind. See Facebook is good for something people.

I wanted to write about this because the two solutions were TOTALLY made of things that I already keep in my food storage. It’s always a good idea to store raw ingredients that can make multiple items versus storing a bunch of different things. For example, you can store a can or two of tomato powder (which we LOVE) versus storing tomato sauce, tomato juice, spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, etc. It’s awesome for saving space and money. So naturally the same rules should apply for household cleaners, but I had never really gotten into “making my own” before as it seemed like a hassle and I still had my regular ones on hand to use up. Until TODAY!

How to Get Stains Out of Granite

Pour some baking soda in a bowl
Mix with water until a paste forms
Spread paste over stained area
Let sit 8 hours or overnight
Wipe off with a wet rag
STAIN IS GONE!

This was such a miracle to me. I’ve had a few stains on my new granite countertops and have been so sad about them so I tried this on several spots and was amazed this morning that they were completely gone. I was so excited that I tried the paste mixture on some of the gross spots on my stove that I’ve had a hard time getting off and it worked GREAT on that too. I’m a little in love with baking soda now. Now I can replace granite cleaner and stovetop cleaner with something I ALREADY have on hand all the time. Yay!

Homemade Laminate Floor Cleaner

1 cup water
1 cup rubbing alcohol
1 cup vinegar
2-3 drops of dish soap

Directions: Mix all ingredients together in a spray bottle or in the cleaner compartment of your “swiffer” mop. Spray onto laminate floor and wipe clean with a microfiber mop or rag.

For a more in depth post about this you can check out this site I found the recipe on. She includes some essentials oils in her cleaner but I didn’t have any on hand so just went with the basics. Also I used Isopropyl alcohol because I had some downstairs. My floor wasn’t quite as shiny as hers so I’m going to see if I try regular rubbing alcohol if that might perk it up a bit. But I LOVED how streak-free the floor was, and it seemed to retain the cleanliness longer than usual. I’ve used Bruce floor cleaner up until now and it seems like as soon as one of my kids steps on it it’s just grimy again right away, and it always was a bit streaky right after anyway. I LOVE this new mix and again, no more storing a separate cleaner. Hurray!

MORE IDEAS

We actually did a post on this topic a LONG time ago which I had kind of forgotten about since it was based on info from one of our great readers. Visit this post for some other homemade household cleaner ideas.

I also have thought a lot about laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent recently. I try to store a few extra boxes of each, just for convenience purposes. But in a LONG term situation, how great would it be to have all the ingredients on hand that I would need to make my own. I have bookmarked a few different recipes and am planning to try this out some day (preferably not a day when I am already feeling discouraged about my house).

What other tips on homemade household cleaners do you have to share??? I’m still learning so I’d leave to hear your tips!