IF IT'S DIRTY, USE A WET WIPE!

Who knew that a terrific little design secret for dirty deeds could be found in the toilet paper aisle of your local grocery store? I've shared this fantastic tip before, but never imagined it might come in handy on my dirty wood! Years ago a fashion designer friend offered a secret to getting nasty little stains out of clothing...baby wipes. I took that secret tip and tried it in my world, and oh how it worked! To remove nasty blemishes from painted walls (by chairs, dirty hands, etc.), shoe scuffs from wood floors, and stains on carpets, I stopped crying and pulled out the baby wipes to do the trick. It worked like magic! What do wipes have to do with today's rambling story? Well, nothing really. But the discovery of a great new tip made me think that things aren't as difficult as we think they are! Take the tedious project of refinishing the wood floors in our soon-to-be family/parlor room. After removing nasty tile previous owners installed on plywood then glued to the original, ninety year old wood floors, the black glue was left behind. We approached this task like many people I imagine do: we ignored it for months. We complained about it, we worried about how expensive and tedious it would be to attack it, then one day our sweet, lovely Bones threw up on it. Our feelings exactly! After enjoying an afternoon of grazing in our side yard (the puppies love eating grass...after all, they haven't seen it in seven months!) Bones walked into our house, took one look at the unfinished floors and deposited his bile all over it. After taking a moment to hold my breath, I grabbed a paper towel and handy wipe. To my total surprise, our canine provided a great design. The glue came right up! Was it the puke? Nope, it was far less complicated. Water. I sprayed a bit of water, let it sit for a few minutes and wiped it away. The glue (and smell of puppy puke) disappeared in an instant!

TIME TO COMPLETE TASK: A 10'x10' room might take an hour to strip glue using the wet wipe routine.

COST: $0

STRESS LEVEL: Facing a hard task and realizing it's a easy as water on wood: LOW