When I adopted my Golden Retriever 16 years ago, I was maddened by the dog smell. He was 9 months old and didn’t have any accidents inside, he didn’t go in the carpeted areas of the house, and I cleaned constantly, but still couldn’t get rid of the smell.

Since then, I’ve had another (even stinkier) dog and hosted over 150 dogs in my house (up to 7 at a time!) with my dog-sitting business. I have been so excited to hear many times throughout all that, guests commenting that they couldn’t smell the dogs or see the fur anywhere.

So here’s what I did to keep our house smelling and looking clean, AND keeping the dogs comfortable, clean, and happy:

Daily cleaning tasks with dogs:

• Run the robot vacuum (automatically–and bonus tip: run it on a schedule, so it forces you to tidy the floor before it runs). I’ve tried many of these, and in 100% honesty, I LOVED the inexpensive ones and nearly despised the expensive name brand ones. My favorites are the Deebot and the iLife.
• Run a lint roller over your clothes. I do this before cooking (we keep one in a kitchen drawer). It keeps fur out of the food of course, but also off of everything else you touch and sit on.

As-needed cleaning through the week:

• Spritz Kids-N-Pets enzyme cleaner on problem areas or areas the pets frequent takes care of small odor issues.
• Spot clean any carpeted areas or fabric furniture that are stinky for whatever reason. You can use Kids-N-Pets diluted in water with a towel to scrub and then cover with a clean, dry towel, or use a spot cleaner. This spot cleaner gets regular use around here.
• A couple times a week, brush the dogs (outside) to keep loose fur out. You can use any brush for this, even a hairbrush works well on many dogs.
• Clean their paws. Doggy feet get stinky and transfer that stink to the floors, so when needed use the MudBuster paw cleaner–usually once or twice a week. Then dry with a towel. You’ll have less stink on the soft floors and less paw prints on the hard floors. If you don’t have a MudBuster, use a very wet towel to scrub, then a dry towel.
• Dry shampoo the dogs, my DIY dry shampoo recipe is my favorite, and it’s practically free. For me, this is usually about once a month, in between baths.
• Shake out rugs. I was impressed by how much these rugs actually work. We keep one outside the back door (on a covered deck) and one inside the door for double the dirt catching. I would like to shake them out daily, but it’s usually once or twice a week.

Weekly cleaning tasks:

• Use a deshedding brush on the dogs.
  If you have a double-coated dog, you might want to take pictures of the second dog you could create out of the fur…fur that would be all over your house otherwise.
  Different deshedding brushes work on different breeds. For double coated dogs, the ShedMonster has been my absolute favorite. For short-haired dogs (and cats), I love the EquiGroomer (I learned about it from the great groomer, Girl With The Dogs, so it’s safe and effective.)
• Remove fur from fabric furniture. Very lightly mist the fabric with water, then put on rubber cleaning gloves and wipe the furniture down with your hands. It’s AMAZING how much better this works than a lint roller, and there is no burning through roller refills either.
  It picks up all the fur way better than a lint roller does, and there’s no waste and no refills to buy.
• Remove fur from bedding. Your bedding and theirs. The Chom Chom is so good for large surfaces.
• Run a full-sized vacuum on carpeted areas. Twice in a row. You’ll be amazed at what comes up with a second cleaning, whether you have dogs or not, but especially if you do.
• Mop hard floors. (Don’t use Kids-N-Pets in your mopping liquid, it makes them VERY slippery.) You can do a full mop, but even a Swiffer-style wet mop will make a big difference.
• Wash the rugs in the hottest water you can. If you get the rugs I recommend, don’t use vinegar on them as it will break down the non-slip backing. If they are stinky, soak them in water with Oxiclean overnight before washing.

Bi-monthly or monthly cleaning:

• Clean the carpet. After running the vacuum (twice!), clean the carpet with a carpet cleaner, preferably using Kids-N-Pets as your cleaning solution (it’s natural and actually eliminates the odor instead of masking it with fake ones and it’s the most effective natural ones we’ve found). And don’t worry, cleaning the carpet with the right cleaner is just as easy as vacuuming.
  This is my favorite carpet cleaner for dogs. It does a great job at getting out the gross, and if you take your time, it dries the carpet pretty well too.
  For the first year or so, I kept everybody (human and dog) off the carpets while they dried, but then realized it didn’t really matter in the end. Before bed is a great time to do it though if you’d rather not walk on damp carpet.
• Bathe the dogs.
  There’s much advice about how often to bathe your dog. After having 3 of my own, and having over 150 visiting dogs, I’ve found that every dog has different needs. Some need a bath monthly, some weekly. When your dog no longer smells neutral or feels pleasant, they’re are likely feeling it too and start scratching and rolling in the grass excessively. Give ’em a bath. For double coated dogs, a silicone dog brush helps tremendously to get the shampoo all the way to the skin when bathing. It’s important to get all the way to the skin if you’re going to remove the smell. (If you struggle to get the shampoo all the way to the skin, that might mean they have slightly matted fur, use a “slicker” brush to clean that up, then bathe.) I do 2 to 4 shampoos per bath, depending on how clean the fur feels. Start with 2 if you’re not sure.
  Dry thoroughly after the bath, otherwise they’ll just bring in fresh wet dog smell and undo everything. Towel dry (2 to 3 towels with lots of encouraged “Shake” in between, then let them run around outside while you clean up–tossing some kibble into the grass keeps them excited by engaging their hunting needs and keeps them busy while they dry out a little–we say “Kibble hunt!”). Then once you’re ready, blow dry to make sure they’re dry to the skin.
• Wash their bedding in the hottest water you can. I like to spray it down with Kids-N-Pets first and lay it outside to dry, then wash normally with soap, but using vinegar instead of fabric softener. It comes out with the least smell and the softest that way.

Recommended products to keep dog smell out

To keep the dogs clean

Paw cleaner

Effective at cleaning stinky paws before the smell transfers to the house.

Buy Now

ShedMonster

For deshedding double-coated breeds, I recommend this twice a week.

Buy Now

Equigroomer

Originally made for horses, this works so well on short-haired dogs (and great on my cat too!).

Buy Now

Silicone Dog Brush

Great for our Berner who has fine hair, both for de-shedding and bathing

Buy Now

To keep the house clean

Oxiclean

Oxiclean takes the dog smell straight out of clothes and bedding. For really strong smells, soak overnight.

Buy Now

Carpet and furniture spot cleaner

This is perfect for accidents on carpet, or just frequently used areas. I use it on my upholstered living room chairs as well with great results.

Buy Now

Chom Chom Roller

Much more effective than a traditional lint roller on large surfaces, and no refills to buy!

Buy Now

Door mats

They’re not all that cute, but they make a big difference!

Buy Now

Gloves for picking up fur

These gloves work way better than lint rollers for gathering fur. Just a light mist of water on the surface of your furniture or clothes, then swipe with the gloves and you’re done! So easy.

Buy Now

Carpet Cleaner

Carpet cleaner that’s as easy to use as a vacuum. This runs weekly in our house to keep the dog smell away.

Buy Now

Kids-n-pets

The most effective odor eliminator (even urine). Great for spraying directly on accidents, or for using in the carpet cleaner.

Buy Now

Deebot Robot Vacuum

Our favorite vacuum if you DO have a smart house. (WAY better than Roomba from our experience–and way more affordable.)

Buy Now

ILife Robot Vacuum

Perfect vacuum to run daily if you DON’T have a smart house. (Currently only $99)

Buy Now

Dyson Animal Vacuum (Refubished)

We’ve been using our refurbished (half-price) Dyson for 8 years and it’s still working beautifully.

Buy Now

And one last point: humidity makes a huge difference. The less humid your house is, the less it will smell like dog. Even if you do everything listed above, if your house is very humid, you’re going to smell the dog(s). Consider a dehumidifier if it’s an ongoing problem, otherwise, just remember it’s temporary and you’ll be back to normal when the humidity is.

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Dogs just stink.  We love them like crazy, so we put up with it until we’re to the point of not even wanting to be in the same room anymore. 

In spite of what some vets recommend (and lots of people on the internet who are just quoting each other), our dogs do best with baths once a week.

But when your dogs are 70 & 80 pounds and double-coated, weekly baths are rarely not always going to happen that often.  So what do you do with two giant stink bombs in between baths?  DIY dry shampoo!

There are lots of dry shampoo recipes for dogs out there, and several commercial shampoos available too.  And we tried lots of them before experimenting on our own.

First, we tried the powders made from oats and cornstarch, baking soda, then one with just cornstarch and essential oils.  While they helped with the stink…I kinda hated them. 

Why most DIY dry shampoos don’t work

If your dog has missed enough baths, you know they get oily just like we do.  The cornstarch in the recipes very effectively absorbs the oil…but then it stays on the dog.  Then when you pet the dog, your fingers get coated with a layer of stinky, oily powder.  Not so pleasant.  Actually, it’s really unpleasant.

And it also makes them itchy.

It turns out, you need VERY LITTLE cornstarch to do the job effectively.  But if you apply the cornstarch as a powder, there’s no way to apply such a small amount evenly and effectively.

How to make DIY dry shampoo that DOES work

The key is spray DIY dry shampoo for dogs.  Most of the spray “shampoo” you can buy for dogs is basically just chemical fragrances to cover up the stink.  And then they’re not real ingredients, so not only did they always end up giving me a stomach and/or headache, there was NO TELLING what they were doing to the poor dogs.  Others that were more natural still did nothing to help with the oiliness, and they were expensive too.

After some experimentation, I came up with a no-rinse shampoo recipe that works perfectly for us.

How to make your own DIY dry shampoo for dogs:

The one tablespoon of rubbing alcohol helps it to dry quickly, but it’s not enough to dry out their skin or damage their fur.  And just one tablespoon of cornstarch is plenty for 1/4 cup of water.  Just enough to be effective, and not enough to coat the dog and everything he touches with greasy powder.

You could go without the alcohol, but your dog will stay wet for a while.

Super easy, and super affordable.  In fact, you probably already have all the supplies in your house–that would make it super free.

And this also makes a great gift idea for any friends or family with dogs!

No-rinse dog shampoo FAQs:

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Last week, after 4 months, the minimalist game we’re playing was finally starting to get hard.  That made me quite happy.  It’s been a major accomplishment and it made me think back to when we started simplifying, exactly 1 year ago.

I didn’t know anything about minimalism until an interview with Joshua Becker, but immediately after hearing it, junk started getting bagged up.  I posted here about it here.  We had this yard sale:

That was the end of last spring.  We continued to get rid of things throughout the fall, and in November, started the minimalist game.  Since November alone, we have gotten rid of 1,700+ additional items.

On average, for the last 12 months, we decluttered 10 items a day.  Our house (and life) has changed quite a bit because of all this.  The basement is usable:

We got rid of our upper kitchen cabinets all-together (and had to bring in decorative items just to fill the shelves):

The wardrobe shrunk:

I posted some tips for simplifying a few months ago, but I have one more today: work in rounds.

Make a list of all the places you could declutter (like the bathroom drawers, a bookshelf, the dresser, etc), and go through the list.  Once you’re finished with the list, start over for a second round.  It’s easy to think after the first round that there is nothing more to get rid of, but by the time you come back to it, you find a lot more to toss.

We’re currently on round 3 of our whole house, and I’m still finding things.  The next 10 days are going to be the biggest yet in our simplifying mission, I’ll tell you why next week.

So who’s getting ready for minimalist game in April?  I’m keeping the Google+ community open.  Leena did a whole month of the game with us, my mom has completed a few months, Alana is about to finish March, and my friend Maryanne is about to finish her second month.  Join us!

The post Another tip from one year of simplifying appeared first on Little Victorian.

12 years ago, I had the amazing opportunity to go to South Africa.  Everything about it was awesome.  I brought back tons of treasures.  So many, in fact, that my friend and I had to stop at a luggage store on our way to the airport to buy additional suitcases to get it all home.

One thing I brought back was this hand-carved chess set.

I purchased this in a tiny second floor studio in a little town.  I purchased it even though I don’t (and don’t have any desire to) play chess, because it was gorgeous and full of character, and from South Africa, and very affordable.

If it were the only thing I had purchased to bring home in South Africa, I would be keeping it.  But it’s not.  Yes, it will be the latest victim of our simplifying.

Don’t get mad at me.  It will be going to a better home, where it will be appreciated and admired and hopefully on display and used.  Here at our house, it sat in a box.  While I would love to have it on display, the pieces fall down too easily, and can you imagine dusting that regularly?!  I’d settle for using it occasionally, except, I don’t like the game of chess.

So, instead of putting it back in the game chest where it will be neglected and take up space, we are donating it to our church’s silent auction.

The decision was easy.  But following through was not.  We set it up one last time and admired it and waffled a little bit, but we packed it up.  It will be handed off this weekend, and it will be hard.  But we have no reason to keep it.  I’d much rather someone have it that is going to enjoy it.

Besides, I do have other beautiful, hand-made treasures that I brought home and still use all the time.

This decision had nothing to do with our simplifying game, by the way.  But you can be SURE that I am going to count it.  Now the only question is, how many items does this count as?  Normally I’d say one, as it’s a package deal, but I think I should get some bonus items since it’s so special.  What do you think?

The post Simplifying: the hard things appeared first on Little Victorian.

Our Roscoe is pretty big.  Even though he is a common breed, he is even larger than most Goldens (85 pounds at his healthy weight–95 if daddy feeds him). 

When it comes to buying things for him, he is considered XXL, which makes things hard to find and expensive.  For our first 3 years with him, we struggled to find him a bed that wasn’t ugly and he could actually fit in.  We went through so many “affordable” beds for him, but they would last about 3 months before getting lumpy.  It was time for a DIY dog bed.

Hover over the image to save it to Pinterest for later.

Actually, this can’t really be called a DIY, because it’s just a re-purpose.  But it’s a far more effective bed for a large dog than any actual dog bed we’ve found: it’s a crib mattress.  Here is our overjoyed model showing off his second, velvety sheet:

At Target, extra-large dog beds start at $80 (lumpy and stinky in no time) and go up to $350 (just, no).  Ours is from IKEA for about $35.  But you can get very affordable one from Amazon too (and if you’re a Prime member, the shipping is free too–if you’re not a Prime member, click here to get a free 30 day trial so you can take advantage of free shipping on something so huge.)

And of course, there are lots of good sheets for under $10. You can use a solid one, but obviously, the patterns are much better at hiding the fur and prints from dirty paws.

(Affiliate links above.)

Not only is the size of the mattress way better than most dog beds, it’s far higher quality, it’s not ugly and it’s so much easier to clean, since it’s covered with a machine-washable fitted sheet.  For extra protection, a mattress pad is only a few dollars more.  Another benefit of the inexpensive fitted sheets is that it takes about 20 seconds to put it on the bed.  Putting covers back on actual dog beds usually took me forever (or 20 minutes, whichever happens first)–pretty annoying when you’re washing it weekly.

So, there you are: a quality, non-DIY large dog bed for under $40.

The post Our non-DIY, DIY large dog bed appeared first on Little Victorian.

Can you believe it’s February already?  January got away from me in regards to a few things I wanted to do–like set up a way for you to join me in the minimalist game.  In November and December, mom and I played, and got rid of a combined total of 1,922 items.

I wrote about the first month here.  And shared this picture of 465 items.

Here are 496 more from December:

We took January off so we could actually donate and/or sell all the items (that may or may not have happened…January just flew by).  But today is the 3rd, so it’s past time to start again!

I wanted to start a Flickr gallery that anyone could upload their photos to, but the logistics weren’t working out, so I started a Google+ community (click here to join!) instead.  I’m not too sure how to use Google+ yet, but adding the photos is pretty simple.

We’d love to have you join us!  We’re not strict or anything…it doesn’t have to be on the exact day (ours are sometimes a day or two behind), and you don’t have to finish the month if it’s too much.  You don’t even have to share pictures if you don’t want, you could just leave a comment and mention how many things (or what things) you got rid of that day.

It’s a challenge as the month goes on, but the results in our home have been priceless: each room is so much more relaxing and organized and easier to clean.  I’m guessing you’ll have more to get rid of than you thought, and as I’ve mentioned before: it’s addictive.

The post February’s simplifying game appeared first on Little Victorian.

An awesome side-effect has popped up from all this simplifying we’re doing over the last six months: I’ve lost the desire to buy stuff.  I had no idea that would happen.  But it’s pretty fun now to actually walk around stores now and enjoy looking at all the pretty things without being tempted at all to purchase them.

This wasn’t something I had to make myself do.  I still took my regular trips to Target to pick up household supplies and browse all the cute things, but right from the beginning, whenever I was tempted by something, the first thing that came to mind was how much daily effort was being put forth at home to get rid of excess stuff, and then there was the realization that in a few months, this item would likely be another thing to get rid of.  Every item was put back on the shelf–and happily!

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So here are a 5 tips from our experience these last 6 months:

1. Try to get rid of one thing every day.
   Even one thing starts to change your mindset about things. Once that starts happening, you begin to naturally lose the emotional attachment you have to things that are not actually valuable. You may not be able to get rid of that old sweatshirt tomorrow, but in a month or two, you’ll probably feel differently.
2. Realize the current value of things.
   We often keep things around because “I paid $XX for this!”  Sorry, but the money is gone, and it’s not coming back.  What value does it have in your home right now?  Is it adding something to your life besides clutter?  Peace of mind from a cleaner space is always more valuable.
3. Don’t buy anything you don’t love.
   You won’t use it as much as you should and sooner or later, you’ll want to replace it, which will end up costing you even more.
4. Don’t buy anything you wouldn’t pay full price for. 
   (That means you don’t love it.  See above.)
5. Don’t save things that you only use once a year, or less.
   Unless, of course, it would cost a lot of money to replace it.  These are the items that hang out on the top shelves, or in the attic and garage.  Is it something you could borrow when (if) the time comes to use it again?  Is it something you could pick up off Craigslist or at the thrift store and then re-sell or donate once you’re done?  I had a great big stock pot for 5 years that I used to make chicken soup twice.  It took up an entire shelf in the pantry. It’s gone now and if I ever want to make chicken soup, I’ll just see if I can borrow a pot from someone.

Here is an infographic that sums up the cost of clutter pretty well:

Infographic authored by Married with Luggage, helping you achieve whatever you’ve always wanted to do.

Here’s a great article to go along with that too: How Much Money is Your Clutter Costing You?

So those are the 5 things that have really helped me the most.  But different things work for different people!  Do you have any tips that have helped (or you think will) help you simplify and declutter?

The post How to simplify your home: 5 easy ways appeared first on Little Victorian.

Want to see what 465 items looks like?

For the month of November, my mom and I played a simplifying game together.  On day one, we got rid of one item each.  On day two, we got rid of two items, and up to day 30, when we got rid of 30 items each.  Every day, we texted each other pictures of the items and in the end, we each tossed 465 things.

I’m a little exhausted, but we’re going for it again this month.  After all, I’ve barely touched the attic yet.  The house could probably burn down and we wouldn’t even remember what was up there.

From March (when we began simplifying) to October, we had probably gathered up about 4 or 5 dozen garbage bags full of stuff.  And that was all before the game.  I can say with confidence now, when you think you have one or two things you can get rid of, you probably actually have 1 or 2 hundred.  As always, it feels so good to have that stuff out of the house.  Each item gone makes it that much more peaceful.  Think you could make it all the way through the month?

The post Turning simplifying into a game appeared first on Little Victorian.

The kitchen is almost complete, but I’m going to wait until I have the rest of the room painted (this week) to show you the photos.  In the mean time, we worked from early morning to after 8 pm yesterday cleaning up the basement, installing lighting and rewiring a bunch of poorly done electrical work.

Since we moved in, we have tried organizing the basement (as in a full day of organizing) at least a half-dozen times.  And still, it has been a constant mess.  If it weren’t for the fact that our washer and dryer are down there, I’m not sure there would even be a path to walk through half the time.  So we’re organizing my favorite way: getting rid of stuff.

We do have at least two of most of our tools, partly because we often work on large projects together, and it’s way easier for each of us to have our own.  But often, when we start a project early on a Sunday morning, we spend a good hour attempting to gather all the tools from the basement.  Some of which, we cannot find because tools are all just in random boxes, piled on top of each other.  We end up giving up the search and going to the store to buy the tool again.  It’s terrible.

Then we finally tackle our project mid-day and all the tools we used go into a random box, and then back to the basement to start over.

This is why, when I started learning more about serious simplifying and minimalism, I was really struck by a couple lines from the Organizing post from The Minimalists:

“No matter how organized we are, we must continue to care for the stuff we organize, cleaning and sorting our methodically structured belongings. When we get rid of the superfluous stuff, however, we can focus on life’s more important aspects…Or we could, of course, reorganize our basement again.  Once the excess stuff is out of the way, staying organized is much easier anyway.”

So yesterday, in addition to the re-wiring we had to do, we decided that we were organizing the basement, for the last time.  In order to do that, we have to get rid of stuff.  A lot of stuff.

These photos were taken before our big yard sale, so some of the junk was already gone, but the spots were just filled in with more stuff.  We burned all the random, useless pieces of wood in the fire pit, put a big free sign on the curb and piled loads of stuff out there, and we filled up two garbage cans of trash.  It looks a lot better this morning, but we’re not done.  Hence, the lack of “After” photos in this post.  We’re going to continue this project this week, along with finishing the stairs and the kitchen.  And then, hopefully by the end of the month, we will have a nice, simplified, organized basement to show you.

The post The shameful basement appeared first on Little Victorian.

Another room that was majorly simplified before the yard sale was the kitchen.

When I was in my late teens, I purchased a full set of dishes.  This wasn’t just the 16 piece box with 4 place settings.  This was 96 a piece set, service for 12.  They were simple, white dishes, Martha Stewart brand and the set was on clearance for around $100.

Those are still the same dishes that we use today.

But I finally accepted the fact that two people just don’t need 24 bowls or 36 salad and bread plates.  Or the 12 lovely coffee cups and saucers that we don’t use because we prefer mugs.  So out they went, along with sooo many other redundant pieces of drink and dinnerware…too many to list.

I’d love to jump on the current kitchen trend and replace the upper cabinets with open shelving, but I’m not sure how good that would be for the value of the house, especially in a fairly small kitchen.

We were planning on replacing the cabinets anyway, and shelves would be way cheaper.  What do you think?  Would open shelving be worth it?

The post The cupboards are bare appeared first on Little Victorian.