Married Monday: Stain Remover

This weekend, Brian and I planned on having a light work load.  On Saturday, we were planning to go to a health fair held at our church and Sunday, we were having church service.  The rest of the time was for relaxation.

Friday afternoon, I was trying to convince Brian to go out to eat that night when our plans were interrupted by a text from my best friend, J.  I have known J since the 10th grade and she was my Maid of Honor in my wedding.  Plus she introduced me to Brian, who is her cousin.  So she is awesome.


Brian and J at my freshman dance recital in 2003.  This was the first time I met Brian.

J and I at my wedding in 2011.

We haven't seen each other since the wedding, but she was in town to see her new boyfriend who happened to live in the same state as us.  She gave me a heads up and we planned to go out on Saturday.  She wanted to visit the house around 5pm, so Brian and I started straightening up.  The living room and dining just needed light dusting and vacuuming but our major problem were the spots on the floor.  I had a carpet stain remover in the house, but it was too toxic to use around Mr. Tibbs and it made the stains look worse.  I found a carpet stain remover mixture on Pinterest a couple months ago, but I never got around to trying it.  Now was the time.  I had 4 major spots in the house: 3 in the living room and one in the dining room.  My best friend has never been to our house, so I knew she was going to see ever nook and cranny in those areas.

I found two websites that looked like it had great results: As We Grow Blog and EHow.  Each website called for 1 cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide and 3 drops of dish detergent but they both did different things.  The Pinterest Pin, AWGB, scrubbed the mixture in while the EHow website let the mixture sit and later blotted the stain out.  Each stain was either fresh or had been there for a couple of years, so I knew I had to use both methods.

Before and after shots.  And help from my awesome husband.

Each cleaning took less than 7 minutes and made the carpet look brand new.  For the Living room, the stain was fresh so I used Ehow's method.  I re-wet the stain with water and poured the mixture over the stain and let it sit for 5 minutes.  Afterward, I blotted and re-wet with water and blotted again.  The Dining room stains have been there since I moved there 4 years ago.  I decided to use the Pinterest pin.  I re-wet, poured the mixture and did a combination of blotting and scrubbing.  My friend did call us in the middle of cleaning up and moved the time from 5pm to 30 minutes from the time we got off the phone so I rushed on the dining room.

She arrived and we caught up where we left off.  She introduced us to her new boyfriend and we reminisced about the wedding, high school and college.  After going out to eat, we probably talked in the parking lot for almost 30 minutes.

It was hard to see her go, but she is coming back again for her boyfriend's birthday (which is 3 days from mines).  I can't wait! :-)

Our next goal, our walls!