Cleaning Granite Counters

Can I let you in on a not-so-secret secret? Try as I might, I'm never going to be Martha Stewart. Not juicy enough? OK. Out of the two of us, I'm definitely the clutter bug. Martha might have a heart attack when she discovers the dust bunnies under our bed. Sure, I fend them off the best I can, but at least one successfully hides between the underbed storage boxes. Nonetheless, I have a few fiscally chic cleaning tips to share. So when I noticed an uptick on pins of my cleaning-related posts, I figured it was time to share another.

We have granite in our kitchen. It wasn't a "must have" or even a "we'd like to have." It was a pleasant surprise in the house hunting process. I didn't grow up with granite, so I wasn't sure how to maintain it (which is when Martha might gasp in disbelief). We love to cook and olive oil is one of the mainstays in our kitchen. Even with wiping up the occasional spill, we were bound to find some errant stains.

So while John was building a ramp in Appalachia, I took matters into my own hands to combat the oil stains. And of course I consulted with Pinterest (here and here to be specific) since that's the place to pin all things food, wedding, style, and cleaning.

I settled on the course of action using what I had available in my kitchen since I didn't want to buy anything crazy I'd barely use again. I present to you:

• 1 cup baking soda
• Water (1/2 cup or less)
• 5 tablespoons dish soap
• Cling wrap

The Internets say to concoct a poultice. That comes from the Latin puls, pultes, meaning "porridge." So today, we will be making a stain-fighting porridge.

In a bowl, mix the baking soda with the dish soap. Add water slowly until the consistency of the mixture is similar to peanut butter, sour cream, or I suppose porridge.

Dampen the part of the granite that is stained and slather your poultice onto the stains. Then cover with plastic cling wrap. This will allow your poultice to stay moist and do its voodoo cleaning magic. (The baking soda absorbs the stains.) Let your saran wrapped poultice sit for at least a day. 

Once a day is up, remove the cling wrap, rinse the area, and wipe your granite dry. It might still look stained for a little while, but that's just the water absorbed into the granite. Let it completely dry and evaporate before deciding to try the poultice again.

Voila! Granite that's sparkly clean!

Going forward, we might look into sealing our granite, but let me bask in my domestic victory for a little while longer...
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Home of the Yellow, White, and Blue

Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday weekend. I still have a slight "holiday hangover" from the 3 day weekend. Yesterday morning was a little rough with waking up early and going back to work. It probably didn't help that I had so much fun in St. Louis and then back in Chicago. When I got home, the front room was done! John painted it Benjamin Moore's Champion Cobalt (matched to Ace Hardware paint) with his friend Nick. I walked into the house and absolutely loved it!! The white trim totally popped against the blue. The floor and doors now seem warmer and more golden. We're missing all sorts of furniture, but I still love it. Thanks, guys!

Pictures on the wall for fun

 

The room doesn't look this shiny in real life, it's just a little tricky to photograph. The paint finish is eggshell, which is one step up from a flat finish. Ace Hardware describes eggshell as, "a versatile finish that appears flat when viewed directly and slightly lustrous when viewed on an angle."

Painting this room was a total kick start to finishing the rest of the house. The next unsuspecting room was the kitchen. We'd been waffling about the color and finally decided to go for it. At first we were thinking gray, but something wasn't sitting right. After looking at paint colors and kitchen pictures online, we thought about a sandy beige. And then I saw a picture of a kitchen painted Benjamin Moore's Golden Honey. The color combination also looked similar to this porch from Betsy Maddox's home tour on Design*Sponge.

via Design*Sponge

Our counters are gray like the floor, the cabinets are similar to the folding chair, and we have white trim around the windows, floor, and doors. Here are some "before" pictures:

So we gave it a whirl and bought the paint. It's not that expensive ($26/gallon less $10 rebate = $16/gallon!), so we knew we could always repaint. Plus, the lady helping us at Ace Hardware had just painted her kitchen a similar yellow. She said her kitchen used to be brownish-beige, but was too dark and gloomy in the winter. It's been so sunny lately that I didn't even consider how the kitchen would look during cloudier days in the winter. Here's our new happy yellow kitchen!

Yes, the pictures were taken while making dinner.

We're also really happy with the way the kitchen turned out. Now it's a matter of finding and hanging artwork. I think the canvases could look nice or we might hang those in the front room.

And the hunt for an accent chair for the front room is still on. John is now wondering whether that the blue and white chair from Target is a little too feminine. Plus, the chair is back to its full price of $300. Maybe we'll look for something in leather. At this rate, we'll probably wait until the couches are delivered to make a decision.

How do you balance different decorating tastes? Any tips for finding a "masculine" chair?

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