Introduction

It takes time and effort to keep your home clean and beautiful. In this article I will present a few housekeeping tips to make your home more clean and beautiful. I hope these can be of some help to you.

Curtains

• There are a variety of durable curtains available in the market today. You may select appropriate curtains based on your budget, the color of the room and the type of furniture you are using.
• If the room is big, curtains with big flowery prints tend to look good. For small rooms, get curtains with small prints, stripes, small checks and self designed material.
• Check out the design of the curtain when selecting the fabric. Long ready made curtains have a tendency of loosing their threads and folds after sometime.
• Bed covers are better if they are made of synthetic or handloom material. These tend to last longer. Don't get painted or embroideried bed covers as they tend to get spoiled in the long run.
• If the curtain in your bedroom is printed, you can get plain or sober bed covers.
• For the bedrooms of your children, get bright colored curtains. Specially if your children are small.
• Purchase your room lampshade and dormat as per the decor of your room.

 Doors, windows and mirrors

• Glass windows and mirrors can be cleaned with an old newspaper. They are effective. The printing ink in the newspaper has good polishing properties.
• Add some starch to some water and clean your mirror with it. Then wipe it off with dry cloth. Your mirror will become clean.
• For cleaning the mirrors on your windows and doors, mixture of lemon and glyciriene is effective.
• For removing paint marks from your glass windows, heat some vinegar and clean the window. The paint mark will go from the glass.
• Clean the blades of your ceiling fan at least once in ten days. First clean the blade with a dry cloth then wash them off with washing powder or any cleaning lotion.

Floor, carpets and mats

• Granite floors can be washed with soap water. For cleaning marble floors you need a goodcleaning powder. You also need to rub the floor vigorously for effective cleaning. Mop the floor with water mixed with kerosene.
• If chewing-gum is stuck on your mat or carpet, it can be removed with a piece of ice.
• You can cut your old carpets and use them as door mats for your bathrooms.
• New woollen carpets should be cleaned with brooms only. Brush can damage them.

Care for furniture

• If you have stains on your polished furntiure they can be removed with a combination of hot water and vinegar.
• Use ammonia to remove old paints from your furniture.
• Use petrol to remove dirt from the arm-rests of your sofas.
• If the color of your furniture has become spoiled, clean it with a combination of hot water and vinegar.
• If your furniture has got a scratch apply brown polish to it.

Sink and tiles

• Clean the yellow spots in your sink with a combination of hot vinegar and lemon.
• Kitchen tiles should be cleaned with cleaning powder and brush.
• For cleaning tiled floors use soap water. To remove stains from tiled floors use lemon.