Thursday, November 7, 2013

Cleaning Help For The Holidays

Anyone having family and friends coming to visit and guests staying with you for the Holidays? 
If you're like me, you're probably thinking about cleaning the house from top to bottom before they arrive. 
I clean my house myself (sometimes my daughter cleans it) and I'm always looking for products that will make that task easier.
Wish I had known about this one sooner. 

About 2 months ago, right after spending the whole weekend with Mr. Fanatic at our Mountain Cottage ripping off wallpaper (and thinking bad thoughts about wallpaper and how it should be illegal), another blogger posted on Instagram about how great one of HomeRight's products was...

for removing wallpaper

I was so upset, I made a comment on that Instagram post basically saying I wish I had known about this sooner. I had seen their awesome FinishMax sprayers (that I was drooling over) at Haven, but I had no idea that they made a SteamMachine Multi-purpose Power Steamer to take off wallpaper. 

Long story short, HomeRight sent me a SteamMachine to review.
(Just wanted to say that even though HomeRight sent me this product to review, the opinions are mine and they have not paid me to say nice things about their product.)

....back to the story...
We've been working on putting in a bathroom at the Cottage, so we haven't had a chance to take down the wallpaper in the remaining two rooms, but...
 I really wanted to try out the SteamMachine and knew there would be spaces in my home that I needed help in cleaning, especially right now before the Holidays coming up.

The first thing I noticed as I took everything out of the box is that it is was very sturdy, even though it's wasn't heavy. I've had 2 other upright floor steamers, so I was pleasantly surprised. 
 You only have to carry the nozzle/attachment and the hose when you're cleaning, so you're not carrying a heavy motor around.

There are a lot of attachments to clean just about everything around the house that you can think of. The smaller attachments fit inside the front compartment. 
Very handy.


 After reading the directions included in the box and filling the SteamMachine with water,  I tried it out in our shower in the Master Bath. The shower really needs to be updated and replaced and it's getting difficult to clean. 
According to the product information, "the SteamMachine uses pressurized, high temperature, steam to loosen and dissolve dirt, grease, grime and kill bacteria"....
so be careful!
I steamed the left side of the glass about 6 times with the squeegee attachment. Then, I turned on the shower and steamed up the enclosure so you could see the difference. 
I still need to go over the lower part of the glass with some limescale remover, but then again, the shower is 13 years old. 
I'm pretty confident that if I use the steam machine once every week or two that the limescale won't build up like it has.



Here's what came out of the crevices in the bottom of the shower door.

ewww

Yup, I still have shiny brass in the Master Bath, but at least it's clean!



Next, I moved to the kitchen and used the SteamMachine on the oven. The little nozzle is great to get dirt out of little crevices.


All clean!
The SteamMachine will work great around the edge of your cooktop and around the edge of a drop in sink.



This is how I will use the SteamMachine the most. (cleaning our tile floors might be a tie)
I have several  no pile/outdoor rugs throughout my home that I  freshen up with an upright steamer when I clean the house. 
Since the SteamMachine is more powerful than my other steamers, I didn't want to steam them on the hardwood floor, so I draped the rugs over my clothes drying rack. I put  on the floor brush attachment, but preferred the same attachment I used on the shower glass.

In just a few minutes I was able to freshen up my hallway rug...

...the rug inside the front door...


...and the bathroom rug.


Depressing the red button gives you continuous steam and makes freshening up your rugs and easy task.
I can tell that a lot of thought has gone into designing the SteamMachine.

While I was at it, I thought I'd freshen up the upholstery and throw pillows.


Here are the attachments I used: 
The large and small round brushes were used on the shower door, the squeegee attachment was used on the shower glass and the rugs and the nozzle was used on both the shower door and oven.


Overall, I think this is the perfect tool to help me keep my house clean. The  HomeRight SteamMachine is designed and made well and works great.

I can think of a whole bunch of areas that it would work great on and they include:

tile floors (there's an extension handle for this job)
countertops
that space where the undermount sink meets the countertop
for freshening up curtains without taking them down!
for freshening up upholstery (my sofa and bedroom chair are next)
practically anywhere in the laundry room
around the toilet

I can't wait to tell you how it works at removing wallpaper and cleaning some of the still grimy walls at our Mountain Cottage. 

Would love to know if you have any household helpers that work well for you...

Happy Cleaning!

Pam
PS: you can find the HomeRight SteamMachine at Amazon.com, Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart  etc.
MSRP is $99.99, but I've seen it for less!

More about the HomeRight SteamMachine Multi-purpose Power Steamer per HomeRight.com:
You can use the attachments to clean and sanitize floors, cooktops, ovens, baths and grills.
Kills 99% of all germs and bacteria
Best of all, it leaves behind no chemical residues!

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like a GREAT machine to have. This might be a great Christmas present for our daughter and SIL!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow that thing looks amazing! I've never cleaned with steam like that!!
    I hate removing wallpaper too--it should be illegal to hang it! I agree!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow, that looks awesome Pam! I'm still thinking about what would happen if my house was clean from top to bottom--all at once, lol. And mine is way smaller than yours!

    ReplyDelete

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