3rd Layer of Cleaning - Day 1

As many of you know, we had to say goodbye to my father-in-law this past week.  He had 89 years on this earth and is now with his wife and son.

It was good to be back in the building.  I really love this place and find by the end of the day, I just can't wipe the smile off my face.

The front kitchen has always been my favorite, so it was time to tackle the cleaning in that room.  As you can see from the picture below, it will be beautiful once we get the floors restored.  This floor was previously swept and then vacuumed.  I still can't believe the amount of dirt that is embedded in the wood flooring.  The water in the bucket turns black after the going over the first six-foot section.  That faucet doesn't work, which is why I brought over a 5-gallon bucket of hot water with me, but I can empty the dirty water into the sink.  Or maybe that wasn't a good idea.  Now I find out the sink is plugged.  Off to another apartment to get the plunger.  Well I was able to "force" the water down the drain with the plunger, but I wouldn't say the issue was resolved.

The rest of the kitchen was quickly mopped just to get a half layer of dirt up.  I'm growing bored with this project.  It's just so hard when I only have one sink that barely has water in it.  It makes for a lot of trips for clean water.

After stepping outside for a break (and to head to Three Crows for another cup of coffee), I discovered that it is a beautiful day outside!  Change of plans on cleaning.  I'm moving onto windows so I can enjoy the sunshine.  All the double-hung windows have storm windows, which means there are eight sides to clean.  Ugh.  Dale has to maneuver the windows around so I can clean them.

These windows are in the back alley kitchen where we always enter the building.  We're starting there since that's what we look through the most.

I cleaned the bottom section first on the inside.  Smokers (and probably a lot of them) lived in this apartment.  The window was cleaned using the scrubby part of the sponge.  Then a sham-wow was used to wipe off the soapy mess, followed by the paper towel in the picture below.

Smoke residue on the paper towel after cleaning the window.

See the brown spots?  That would be the nicotine-ladened water dripping from the window. Ick.  In addition, Lime-Away had to be used on the outside of the windows to remove the years of calcium buildup.

The transformation is amazing!  Before and after pictures.

And look how pretty from the outside!

Now it time for a break from the windows, so heading back inside to work on floors.  

Cleaning the floor in the front alley apartment.

Before and after pics of the front alley kitchen. 

So I'm feeling brave (even though I tore a hole in my rubber gloves and decided to hit the bathroom in the front alley building.  Again, Lime-Away did a pretty good job... too bad I ran out.  Need to get more and continue working on this mess.

 The enclosure is complete, and hopefully Dale will have time to begin working on the new storefront this week.

So all in all, a really great relaxing Sunday!