Another Gross Day
I feel like I can officially declare our Experiment Dog a failure. I spent another good 2 hours working on cleaning urine carpet stains, and trust me that it's something you do not ever want to do. Not only is it massively gross because you're dealing with not just urine but OLD urine, but it's also really frustrating. Old urine is much worse than new, fresh urine. Really, fresh urine is not nearly so bad as people make it out to be. Yeah, it's waste from our (or other creatures') bodies, but it's also water.
Old urine, however, has loads of bacteria of disgusting varieties. These are what create that lovely smell. These are what I am trying to clean out of our carpet. Yes, I want those gross yellow stains gone as well, but most important to me is the SMELL. I'm still planning on rolling a rug down on the carpet to cover the stains most effectively, but we need the smell to be as much gone as I can make it, or our aparment will always smell. I'm also planning on covering smell up with diffusers/potpouri/outlet inserts. But, that's no excuse to just leave the gross in the carpet.
Today I tackled the living room stains, which are much older. I can already tell that the difference is going to be that I may actually be able to get most of the stain look out of the nursery ones, but the living room is likely lost cause. They're just too old for me to lift the stain out of the carpet. But, I'm hoping that at the very least I will have been able to get the smell down to where *I* cannot smell it anymore (and I have superhero level smelling abilities still). I went after the stains in both rooms--this means the second treatment for the Nursery carpet, and this time I included baking soda with the vinegar and water. That's all I'm going at the carpet with this time around, to keep it as all natural as possible.
The other gross was once again the vacuum. This time it wasn't removing hair, at least not mine--the canister was starting to get very gross from all the gross that I was sucking up. So, I went in and removed as many parts as possible and cleaned/washed them. It was even more disgusting than the carpet because it was all the stuff from the carpets that I didn't even want to know was there. And a lot of it smelled like the really old urine. D=
On the plus side, I've worked on another step towards getting the apartment to be Baby Prepared. We're going to be clearing out the rest of the room by the end of the week (!!), and getting everything finalized in organizing stuff. Then we get to start buying the Non-Baby Baby stuff, like the chairs. In fact, we just have a few more things to do. I sort of wish I'd created a To-Do list to check off as we went, but I suppose I can do one now:
1. Get rid of as many boxes in the closet as possible.
2. Reorganize closet to maximize floor/shelf space.
3. Find a trunk to store things in closet that can double as a seat.
4. Get storage ottoman for living room to store shoes, and create "mud room."
5. Buy display shelf for dolls and cars.
6. Move bookshelves around to get bookshelf out of Nursery.
7. Replace all shipping boxes being used as storage where they're seen with nice storage.
8. Color coordinate bathroom, and make room for guests.
9. Donate as much stuff to Goodwill/Library as possible.
10. Clean carpets, focusing on the urine stains.
11. Clean out the right half of Nursery closet for Baby Stuff.
12. Create better system for recyling.
13. Find better location for Brian's bike in apartment.
14. Clear porch of leaves from autumn, and buy herbs or flowers for the pots already owned.
15. Organize important paperwork, and remove as much as possible from plastic drawers for other use.
16. Hang up all extra art to get off floor in closets.
17. Buy guest supplies (sheets for futon, pillows, shower stuff, luggage holder, etc).
18. Move desk to corner of room to better make room for baby furniture.
19. Empty Nursery of everything non-baby related (all boxes!!).
20. Devise new mail storage/sorting system.
We've gotten through a lot. In fact, I'm particularly proud of the bathroom, oddly enough (and the closet!). It was also the least expensive "make over" in the apartment, so that's always a bonus. It was as simple as replacing the bathmats (which HAD to be replaced thanks to me landing on them when I fainted and bled all over them); converting a shoe box into a nice box under sink using left over craft fabric and staples; buying some accesories like a tissue holder, a nice tumbler, and a lotion dispenser that was turned into a flower vase; getting color coordinated towels; and getting an over-the-door hanging device for guests/my robe. I also took out the yellow flowers that were in there and moved them to the living room, where they are currently looking very cheery.
The closet is also really coming along. I've gotten down to just about as few ugly boxes as I've been able to so far, and hope that even though I have to now start putting some back in that it will not be too terrible. A few small changes really made the difference between a terrible box stuffed room to a neat little (somewhat crowded) closet. It's still weird for me to have a closet that is stuffed full, but not with clothes. I am telling you now that if you're thinking of moving somewhere that has only two closets in the entire place, and you're not living alone, DO NOT GO FOR IT. I would probably punch a stranger in the face for a linen closet somewhere, or a pantry.
Anyway. Now I'm off to think about my next task, which is likely to be figuring out what to do with all of my various artsy things. I'm really not sure what will happen with them, and I really need to go through the paperwork as well, but every single thing I do helps in some way. That is, as long as I'm working on it! Haha.
Old urine, however, has loads of bacteria of disgusting varieties. These are what create that lovely smell. These are what I am trying to clean out of our carpet. Yes, I want those gross yellow stains gone as well, but most important to me is the SMELL. I'm still planning on rolling a rug down on the carpet to cover the stains most effectively, but we need the smell to be as much gone as I can make it, or our aparment will always smell. I'm also planning on covering smell up with diffusers/potpouri/outlet inserts. But, that's no excuse to just leave the gross in the carpet.
Today I tackled the living room stains, which are much older. I can already tell that the difference is going to be that I may actually be able to get most of the stain look out of the nursery ones, but the living room is likely lost cause. They're just too old for me to lift the stain out of the carpet. But, I'm hoping that at the very least I will have been able to get the smell down to where *I* cannot smell it anymore (and I have superhero level smelling abilities still). I went after the stains in both rooms--this means the second treatment for the Nursery carpet, and this time I included baking soda with the vinegar and water. That's all I'm going at the carpet with this time around, to keep it as all natural as possible.
The other gross was once again the vacuum. This time it wasn't removing hair, at least not mine--the canister was starting to get very gross from all the gross that I was sucking up. So, I went in and removed as many parts as possible and cleaned/washed them. It was even more disgusting than the carpet because it was all the stuff from the carpets that I didn't even want to know was there. And a lot of it smelled like the really old urine. D=
On the plus side, I've worked on another step towards getting the apartment to be Baby Prepared. We're going to be clearing out the rest of the room by the end of the week (!!), and getting everything finalized in organizing stuff. Then we get to start buying the Non-Baby Baby stuff, like the chairs. In fact, we just have a few more things to do. I sort of wish I'd created a To-Do list to check off as we went, but I suppose I can do one now:
1. Get rid of as many boxes in the closet as possible.
2. Reorganize closet to maximize floor/shelf space.
3. Find a trunk to store things in closet that can double as a seat.
4. Get storage ottoman for living room to store shoes, and create "mud room."
5. Buy display shelf for dolls and cars.
6. Move bookshelves around to get bookshelf out of Nursery.
7. Replace all shipping boxes being used as storage where they're seen with nice storage.
8. Color coordinate bathroom, and make room for guests.
9. Donate as much stuff to Goodwill/Library as possible.
10. Clean carpets, focusing on the urine stains.
11. Clean out the right half of Nursery closet for Baby Stuff.
12. Create better system for recyling.
13. Find better location for Brian's bike in apartment.
14. Clear porch of leaves from autumn, and buy herbs or flowers for the pots already owned.
15. Organize important paperwork, and remove as much as possible from plastic drawers for other use.
16. Hang up all extra art to get off floor in closets.
17. Buy guest supplies (sheets for futon, pillows, shower stuff, luggage holder, etc).
18. Move desk to corner of room to better make room for baby furniture.
19. Empty Nursery of everything non-baby related (all boxes!!).
20. Devise new mail storage/sorting system.
We've gotten through a lot. In fact, I'm particularly proud of the bathroom, oddly enough (and the closet!). It was also the least expensive "make over" in the apartment, so that's always a bonus. It was as simple as replacing the bathmats (which HAD to be replaced thanks to me landing on them when I fainted and bled all over them); converting a shoe box into a nice box under sink using left over craft fabric and staples; buying some accesories like a tissue holder, a nice tumbler, and a lotion dispenser that was turned into a flower vase; getting color coordinated towels; and getting an over-the-door hanging device for guests/my robe. I also took out the yellow flowers that were in there and moved them to the living room, where they are currently looking very cheery.
The closet is also really coming along. I've gotten down to just about as few ugly boxes as I've been able to so far, and hope that even though I have to now start putting some back in that it will not be too terrible. A few small changes really made the difference between a terrible box stuffed room to a neat little (somewhat crowded) closet. It's still weird for me to have a closet that is stuffed full, but not with clothes. I am telling you now that if you're thinking of moving somewhere that has only two closets in the entire place, and you're not living alone, DO NOT GO FOR IT. I would probably punch a stranger in the face for a linen closet somewhere, or a pantry.
Anyway. Now I'm off to think about my next task, which is likely to be figuring out what to do with all of my various artsy things. I'm really not sure what will happen with them, and I really need to go through the paperwork as well, but every single thing I do helps in some way. That is, as long as I'm working on it! Haha.