No More Indoor Dust Storms

After yesterday's severe weather today was beautiful. I opened all the windows and did some long-overdue sprucing up around the house. I dusted, swept, and removed a few cobwebs. I even got to a few nooks and crannies that usually don't get cleaned, like the ceiling fans, using a tip my friend jd sent me. I believe she originally got it from The Dollar Stretcher Website:

The hassle of cleaning ceiling fans can be made easier by using an old, preferably king size, pillowcase. I spray a little Pledge inside the case and slip it over the fan blade. While the blade is inside the case, grip the back of the pillowcase and the blade and then slide the pillowcase toward the end of the blade. All the dust is removed from the top and bottom of the blade in one clean sweep. The best part is that all the dust is enclosed inside the pillowcase rather than falling in your face! You can do several fans with the same pillowcase.

When you are finished cleaning, take the pillowcase outside and turn it inside-out and shake out the excess dust. When it's washed and dried, store the pillowcase with your cleaning supplies, so you will have it ready the next time it's time to clean your ceiling fans. By the way, if you don't have an old pillowcase, you can find old pillowcases at Goodwill or thrift stores.

jd is a friend and walking companion. (Visit her blog, Walk It Off, and tell her I sent you.) We've never traded cleaning ideas, but this sounded like a good one and I decided to try it. I found an old pillowcase in the linen closet, sprayed it with some furniture polish, and headed for the ceiling fan in the family room. The pillowcase worked great - everything fell into the pillowcase and not on the floor. I was able to do all the fans in the house before the pillowcase got too dirty to use. When I was finished I threw the whole thing into the laundry basket.