Not the Greatest Ideas for Cleaning and Maintenance of Your Upholstery

Usually, furniture upholstery is one of the elements of the interior which attracts and accumulates most of the dust, dirt and other residues.  This is why, regular and appropriate cleaning of the upholstery is essential, not only to keep it looking fresh and good but also to ensure that the air in your home or office is clean and will not cause health problems or allergic reactions.

First of all, regular hoovering is a great way to ensure that much of the dust and dirt is sucked off the upholstery, and the residue which can easily get stuck in the sneaky areas of the furniture is removed. In addition, in order to get rid of the harmful dust accumulation in your furniture, make sure that you take them outdoors and beat them by hand to get as much dust out of them as possible.  If you have the opportunity, you can leave them outside awhile to let them “breathe” some fresh air as well.

Since most of us enjoy eating or, at least, snacking on our living room furniture, it is no surprise that the upholstery is often subject to various staining from foods and drinks.  The rule to keep your upholstery as clean and stainless as possible is to act immediately after you spill something on it.  Try to dry out the spill as soon as possible with blotting paper or a clean cloth.  Remember not to rub it because this can cause the stain to spread and to be rubbed in deeper making it very difficult to be cleaned out. 

If there still is a stain after dabbing the spill, then you can go on and use a cleaning solution to carefully treat it.  Always check what the producer has put on the care labels on the furniture or cushion in regard to the washing. 

Using the wrong time of detergent can in some cases ruin your upholstery, so be careful before washing it.  Sometimes, the colours of the upholstery textile will be affected and can actually come off after the use of an improper cleaning detergent.

The gentlest way to treat a stain is to gently dab it with a clean cloth with a warm water and white vinegar solution.  This is a natural and quite efficient cleaning method which you can try when removing stains from your upholstery.

For removal of serious stains and for a full and thorough cleaning of the upholstery and your furniture, it is strongly advised to hire a professional upholstery cleaning company to perform a deep clean once in every 12 to 18 months.  This will ensure that the dirt and the harmful residue is completely removed, the stains are gone, and the upholstery looks and smells fresh and new.

Bay Park Villas

Bay Park Villas
by Thelly Reahm Tidbits of Time
1951

TWO BEDROOM, 1 BATH, V.A. the sign on Morena Boulevard read. Beside the sign was a rather large stack of lumber. It was meant to give the buyer confidence that houses would be built very soon. This would be the very first tract development in Pacific Beach.

We bought our first house on a cul-de-sac for safety for the children. It was one block above Morena Boulevard, the Santa Fe Railroad and Pacific Highway (which later on become I-5). At that time, we didn't know the importance of the now famous slogan in Real Estate of "Location, Location, Location."

The men were just home from W.W. II and we all purchased our houses for less than $9,000 with three and a half percent G.I. loans. There were thirty kids on our block and several 'in the oven' as we called it then. That's a lot to know about a total stranger before you even meet. We were forced to bond quickly....we had lawns to plant, yards to fence and carpools to form. We didn't even have telephones or paved streets for many months.

We were probably the only ones who didn't have the $100.00 for closing costs. We borrowed it from Franny and Lil Wilson. Unfortunately, they didn't qualify for the G.I. loan because he was paid on commission at that time. We qualified, but didn't have the money for closing.

Our previous abode in La Jolla was furnished. We bought a used stove and moved in with nothing but our small apartment sized refrigerator, a crib and a youth bed. We chose to buy a sofa bed, so that we would have a place to sit in the living room, as well as a place to sleep. I remember how terribly uncomfortable it was while I was nursing Kathy who was only six weeks old when we moved in.

We knew nothing about landscaping and had never heard of a 'green thumb' but we had access to a friends flat bed trailer, so we hauled dirt from the San Diego River bed for top soil for our front lawn. It was great and fertile stuff, filled with every weed known to man. But what did we know? We were young and trying to save money.

The color scheme for the neighborhood was simplicity itself. If you bought a grey house, your living room was green and the bedrooms were peach. If you bought a green house, the living room was grey and the bedrooms were peach. All the floors were oak except the kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen tile was pale yellow trimmed with green whether your house had grey or green exterior. The builder, Mr. McGraw didn't have a lot of pazazz when it came to decor, but he built sturdy houses. They are still there today, and many of them have been remodeled with two stories to take advantage of the great view of Mission Bay Aquatic Park....home to the Thunderboat races each summer.

When we first chose our lot, it was on a gently sloping hillside....previously a horse riding stable. The developer built one model home and you could choose the 'other' floorplan from the architects drawings. Because of the marvelous view we chose the house plan with the living room on the back overlooking the bay. It had a small entry hall in front. I had never heard of houses having living rooms on the back before and I thought this would be terribly unique. I didn't know that the majority of a young mother's time would be spent in the kitchen that looked out on a dirt street and houses with no lawns.

A few weeks later we drove out to visit our land. To our surprise, the gently sloping hillside had been carved by bulldozers into terraced lots up and down the hill. Supposedly to give everyone a better view of the bay. What it did was chop our lots in half. Our back yard was now about 15 feet lower than the plot where our house would be. We were sick but we were already approved for loans and building permits were pulled. Now this would probably involve retaining walls and stairs.

Poppy said, "They're never going to do anything with that pile of lumber. And do you know you'll be paying $30,000 dollars for that when you're done paying for it?" I didn't understand that high finance stuff at all. At this point in my life I'd never purchased anything on credit before. What could I possibly know about compound interest.

There were no deadlines for the homeowners to landscape or for the builder to do the road improvements. We waited almost a year for Ma Bell to put in phone lines. Meanwhile we made do with one telephone booth at the end of the street. There was always a line and it was generally to call the Pediatrician. But this was our home....we weren't just throwing out money down the drain for rent like before. Our house payments were only $18.00 more than our rent had been. $68.00 a month....taxes and insurance included. You couldn't beat that with a stick!

That is until you realized that you needed a second car living out here in the wilderness and fences to keep the skunks and coyotes out. And retaining walls to keep the house from slipping into the bay. Those $5.00 per month time payments could really add up fast.

Then there were school clothes and wagons and bicycles and lawnmowers and those new fangled garbage disposers. And drapes and rugs. And pictures and mirrors. And that first coat of paint didn't last long. So we bought a little red pickup truck to haul our 'unfinished' furniture in. We set up wood-staining tables in the garage and finished furniture like we were pros. There wasn't such a thing as health insurance, so the doctor bills piled up steadily. I learned to cook frugally, to sew my children's clothes and to make do. Growing up in the Thirties had taught me well. Use it up....wear it out....make it do....or go without!

We had those old 'homeowner blues' occasionally, but this was our little corner of the world and we wouldn't have changed a thing. We were young and strong and exceptionally naive!

Corn Bread and Beans

Corn Bread and Beans
by Thelly Reahm Tidbits of Time

1953

It was Tuesday. Ever since I had been a child, Tuesday dinner was cornbread and beans, and it was a tradition or habit that I figured was well worth preserving. It meant that little or no real thought had to go into preparing dinner. Monday was washday....Tuesday we ironed and Tuesday night we ate cornbread and beans.

The steamy dishwater was fogging up my glasses as I finished up the dinner dishes. No leftovers. We ate it all. The glassware was the usual gunky mess of having had buttermilk and cornbread combined into a disgusting mush. That tradition came from my husband's side of the family....not mine. I considered dunking not quite polite.

I was checking my Tuesday list of chores mounted to the bulletin board....all done....I could relax and watch TV. Then the doorbell rang. Hmmm...I thought, we weren't expecting anyone. Who could this be?

I untied my apron as I glanced out the little kitchen window. It looked like Juke and Tee's car, but they weren't expected until Thursday. Floor waxing day. I always planned it that way so my house looked really good. Tee was an immaculate housekeeper. I was compulsive with my list making, but she was compulsive about her house.

The children answered the door and yelled "It's Juke and Tee!" Their kids and ours commingled into a noisy frenzy because they only got to see each other on planned occasions, as we did not live in near neighborhoods.

"What are you guys doing in this neck of the woods?" I asked as we hugged our hello's.

There was a rather stunned look on their faces as they said simultaneously, "Well....for dinner....what else?" Tee said noticing my confusion.

"Are we late or early, or what?" Juke asked.

"Only a couple days early," I said, "I'm expecting you Thursday," I kind of mumbled.

"Thursday?" she asked, "It's news to me!"

"You were the one who changed it," her husband said slipping unobtrusively into his grumpy mode. "Remember, you said last week at our house that your Mother was coming Thursday from Pine Valley and you'd have to change us to Tuesday."

That's the way with habits I thought. I was preconditioned to Tuesdays ironing and beans and cornbread! Thursdays was Juke and Tee's night for dinner, every other week. That's how it had been for years...not Mother on Thursday. Yikes! Did my Mother's impending visit give me that mental block, or was this friendship on shaky ground? I hadn't even included them in the quantity of beans that I'd cooked....I hadn't made dessert or anything that I would have done for a 'company supper'. Besides. I wouldn't have cooked beans and cornbread for guests. What a revoltin' development this was.

"Tee....I'm sorry. I don't know what to say. We've eaten supper and there aren't even any leftovers," I said helplessly. "I don't know how I forgot, except that I did. I'm terribly sorry. Can I fix sandwiches or......" my voice trailed off into the ice cold air that surrounded us. My dilemma was huge, because on the limited budget of our early marriage, I had no real 'extra's' in the house from which to scare up a meal. It was before freezers in every garage or super markets at every corner. There was no such thing as Jack in the Box to run out to, or the extra money with which to do it.

There stood two hungry adults and two hungrier kids, and their finances were about the same as ours. They were going to have to go clear home to eat.

As they walked out across the lawn I could hear Juke saying "With all those lists of hers you'd think she could get things straight."

He was right. I'd depended on habits to keep my life in order instead of writing down the changes. For sure, amends were up to me.

Cornbread and beans and mushy buttermilk glasses still remind me of that night and how very tenuous friendships can be.

That one didn't really survive. Oh we still saw each other at social functions through the years but we were never 'best friends' again.

Mae Smith

Mae Smith
by Thelly Reahm - Tidbits of Time

1953

There was rarely a day went by without a salesman knocking on our doors. Magazines. The Jewel Tea Man, Arrowhead Water, and Electrolux. We nearly always let them in to show their wares or listen to their pitch. It was how a lot of ex-service men made their living. And of course, we did not 'have it all' yet. I was a sucker for a down and out salesman.

This particular day, I called our neighbor, Mae Smith, across the street to sit in on the sales pitch of an Electrolux vacuum. I knew she wanted one. She was seventeen years older than me and had no children. She had been a professional dancer in her youth but had lost her leg in a car accident. She wore a prosthesis and it was barely noticeable.

"So, do you like this machine, Mrs. Gorden?" the salesman asked. He had just dumped a bucket of dirt on one of my throw rugs and the vacuum had sucked it up instantly.

"Well, who wouldn't? It picks up everything!" I was greatly impressed with it's suction power, but I had no carpets. Mae had rugs in her house. I was still just using a dust mop and I kept my hardwood floors waxed to a sheen.

"What do you think, Mrs. Smith?"

"Oh, Yes, I want one! Yes!" She was a pushover.

He got out his paper work and began to write.

"Now let's see, you must be 37. Is that right?

"Awaark!" she shrieked as she grasped her ample chest. "Yes, but what does my age have to do with a vacuum cleaner?"

"Your age?" he looked blank, then a light dawned.

"I meant your address. Mrs. Gorden is at 3336. You must be 3337, right?"

"Right!" she said, she giggled all the way home with the happy salesman carrying her new vacuum behind her.

Valentines Day

Valentines Day
by Thelly Reahm - Tidbits of Time

1955

Valentines were scattered, willy nilly, all over the living room carpet.

Bruce, in a squatting position, was pondering over each one, trying to decide who got what picture or verse. Tomorrow was the big day.

“Mushy ones are for girls,” he said.

“And funny ones for the boys?” I asked I knew he didn’t like the idea of giving boys Valentines.

“Yeh, I guess…I don’t know why we have to give Valentines to anyone.” He said wrinkling up his nose in disgust.

It was now a class rule at Bay Park School, that if a child sent a valentine to school, they had to send one to each child in the class, so nobody’s feelings got hurt.

I could go along with that. I understood, because I had been waiting for eight years to receive a valentine from my spouse. Maybe that was why Bruce couldn’t see any reason for giving Valentines. His father hadn’t been a role model for that.

I talked about the lovey, dovey sentiment behind Valentines Day, and assured him that when he got older, and had a girlfriend, he would want a mushy card to express the sentiment that came
so hard for boys.

Meanwhile, I could smell the cupcakes baking in the kitchen oven. I volunteered to make treats a lot for school parties, because I was a stay at home mom. More and more mothers were opting for jobs outside the home, and didn’t have time to bake. I baked almost every day, so it was no big deal to me.

I frosted the cupcakes white and decorated them with tiny redhot hearts and covered them ready to take to Bay Park School the next morning.

I made enough cupcakes to have one each for dessert that evening. We always had to have something sweet for after, that had always been a must in the family I came from, and I carried on the tradition like it was etched in stone.

The next day, after I delivered Bruce and the cupcakes to school, I went to the market to buy chocolate covered hearts for my husband and my children. I wouldn’t have to bake today, because these delectable candy hearts were their Valentines and dessert.

After the children had cleaned their plates, they asked “What’s for after?”

I brought out the treats and laid them in front of each of them.

“Ooooh! Yummy Valentines!” they chorused, “with our names!”

“They also say “I love you” I said hugging them.

Just then my husband got up and left the kitchen. I thought, as usual, he didn’t get me a Valentine. I swallowed hard.

He came back in to the kitchen table and sat down. He pulled one hand from behind his back and presented me with the first Valentine I’d had since I’d gotten married. I just beamed as I opened it.

The front said “I need you…” I opened it up to the rest of the verse on the inside... “like a whole in the head.”

I faked a laugh for the children’s sake and said “Thank you,” to my husband.

I got up from the table and went to the bathroom. It was the only room in the house where I was assured privacy.

My nose was squinching up and the tears were welling up in my eyes. I flushed the toilet to muffle the sounds of my crying. For sure the card was not worth waiting eight years for...certainly not what I expected.

I knew Jackie Gleason, playing the part of Ralph Kramden, in the Honeymooners said derogatory things like that to his stage wife Alice, but I had expected more. I’d had eight long years to fantasize about this occasion. Eight years of seeing the cards my girlfriends received…mushy Valentines.

I was still young and sentimental. I wanted a mushy Valentine…one that tugged at the heartstrings. I’d just turned twenty-six and I’d never received a box of candy, a bouquet of flowers or a slurpy, sloppy, mushy Valentine.

I guess to him, the words ‘I love you,’ came with great difficulty.

I turned the cold water on at the basin and splashed water all over my face. I had dishes to do, kids to bathe and bed down, and probably my wifely duty to perform. Especially since I had received a Valentine.

No matter that it was filled with sarcasm.


Post Script: It wasn’t until many years later that I learned that sarcasm was anger coming out sideways. That made two of us who were angry, only I just turned off and shut down.

When he was diagnosed with lung cancer in September 1998, he married his childhood sweetheart, Mickey, with whom he had been living for some time. She had divorced her husband of fifty years and they tied the knot. I acknowledged to myself then that he had wanted his ‘first love’ all along.

It was true…I’d been his ‘rebound’ girlfriend after he and Mickey had broken up over some silly argument they had back in the Forties. Today in the myriad of how-to manuals you’re taught not to marry your rebound girlfriend. He did, that was his mistake.
I guess he was trying to make an ‘honest woman’ of her, by marrying her. The kids told me she was a practical nurse and that she took good care of him. By being married, she would be able to see him in ICU when the time came, and help make decisions if he could not.

Then, on Christmas day, he died.

Mickey never received a Valentine from him. I hoped that by age 73 he’d learned how to say ‘I love you’.

During his illness, I thought perhaps he would make amends to me for the hurts of the past. After all, I’d stayed with him for seventeen years. I was the mother of his children. I thought maybe he would even send a greeting card, since apologies in person were not his strong point. Even a sarcastic Shoebox card would have worked, but that never happened.

I still get my expectations up too high. That’s my Pollyana complex!

A Soap Opera

A Soap Opera
by Thelly Reahm - Tidbits of Time
1958

In the cold grey light of dawn there is no worse sound than the pulsing of water through the pipes of your house when you know that no one is up. No one is showering, the washing machine is not running and the toilet has not flushed.

I bolted upright in bed as the thought 'Water break' filtered through my sleepy brain. I ran into the bathroom first because it was closest and in my mind most suspect. We'd had a cantankerous toilet for years. Anything was possible.

It was all clear in there.

I ran down the hallway, through the living room and dining room to the kitchen skidding to a stop when I hit the water. The kitchen floor was flooded and I could see the water coming out from under the sink.

The kitchen portion of the house on Missouri Street was a remodel done by the previous owner's and the original kitchen had been made into a bedroom. Whoever poured the foundation undershot their measurements, so the kitchen was about two inches lower than the rest of the house. Today that was of great importance, because the water had not risen to reach the dining room carpet.

I screamed, nevertheless, and ran for the plumber. Fortunately he was in bed, so I wasn't going to have to pay a horrendous service fee for this emergency in the early dawn hours. No double time for this guy.

He ran back with me to the kitchen not believing what I had hysterically told him.

"This is impossible," he said in disgust, "it's a new kitchen."

"Well, you'd better get a tool and turn the water off or this is going to flood the rest of the house," I said trying to penetrate his sleepy countenance.

While he went to do that, I entered the kitchen bare footed to see if I could swish the water out the back door.

It was then that I spied the twenty five pound box of Tide sitting by the rear entrance. I had planned to carry it out to the garage laundry room the night before and hadn't. Procrastination. My worst fault.

I grabbed the handle on top of the huge box, opening the back door at the same time. The big orange and blue box went with me out the step to the patio, but the soap powder stayed in the flooded kitchen. All twenty five pounds of it! I hadn't stopped to consider that the bottom of the box was soaked from the torrent of water spewing from under the sink. As I lurched the carton out, the soap spread in a wild fan-like arc across the flooded floor. The water was still pouring out from under the sink to help the soap powder transform into slippery sludge creeping across the linoleum.

I heard the water pipes clunk to a stop as my husband turned it off at the street. By this time all the noise had awakened the children and they were standing behind me in the gooey mess, soap oozing up between their little toes.

"What is this stuff?" Bruce asked.

"Soap." I said frantically, trying to scoop some of it out the back door with a spatula.

"Can we make bubbles?" Kathy asked. Her question didn't even get answered.

All I could think of was the cost of that gigantic box of soap. I wouldn't have anything to wash clothes with.

The plumber arrived back in the kitchen, toolbox in tow, ready to fix a simple water break. By that time I had found a broom and was swooshing the soapy water outside to the patio. My nightgown had acted like a sponge and I was soaked to the waist. The children tried to be helpful by moving kitchen chairs out of my way.

"What the hay...." he said in disbelief. He was very big on What- the-haying.

"Oh....I just thought I'd mop the floor while the water was here! Whadaya think what the hay!" I yelled.

He set the tool box down on the kitchen table. We were a sorry sight. Soap suds growing....soaked kids and wife. He began to laugh. The children looked up at me as if to say "Is this okay?"

"Yeh, what the hay!" I said. We all began to laugh.

It was either that or blow bubbles.

A Fashion Faux Pas

A Fashion Faux Pas
by Thelly Reahm - Tidbits of Time

1959

Growing up, I’d never had a formal gown, except to be part of a wedding. I longed to have experienced the feeling of going to some exquisite occasion with a long dinner gown.

When the opportunity came up to go to a dressy dinner dance, short cocktail dresses were the in thing to wear. Finally, I would get to go to something really ‘up-town’ as we called it. Never mind that a long gown was out and short fluffies were in.

The invitation came from a very unexpected source: The Fish and Game Department
They were having a fundraising dinner dance for Ducks Unlimited. Finally, something to include the wives. That was an unusual thing for the hunters to do.

I ran down to Evelyn Wigton’s on Garnet, but there was nothing in the way of dressy dresses. So, off I went to downtown San Diego. I searched in every store from Lion’s to Lerners, trying to find something that suited me and was also in my price range. I went from the chain of Fifth Avenue shops on up to C Street where Montgomery Ward was located. I was about to give up. My expectations were not great for Wards…they never had anything that was really in style!

Wherever I went, I always checked the sale racks first. That was a habit long-standing from the Great Depression years, and old habits die hard. Today was not any different.

Off in the corner of Women’s Wear, there it was on the sale rack. It was Green chiffon, with a small figure in it of spring flowers. It was gorgeous. I could feel my heart quicken. There were three of them all in a row. An 18, which was way too big, a size 5 which was too small and, lucky for me, a size 10. The price was $15.95! It was half what it had been. Wow! I could afford it and still have enough in the entertainment fund for the dance tickets. I probably wouldn’t be big enough in the bustline for the 10 as I usually took a 9, but I could stuff my bra! I had been known to do once in awhile, since I’d lost my voluptuous breasts after nursing two children.

I took the 10 into the bare closet they provided for a dressing room and tried it on. It had a tiny waistline with criss-cross self belt. There was no mirror, but I knew it looked good. I could feel it!

Curt and Doris were going with us. I knew Doris would be dressed to the nines, and probably sporting her mink stole. That mink stole always intimidated me, but this dress I’d found was going to run a close second. I felt really swishy in it! It showed off my small waist and had a bit of gathers in the bustline. Doris had gotten a boob job by this time and I felt intimidated by that too! Oh, well! I was much younger, by ten years than she was. That must account for something. And my hair was not grey yet.

When we got to the dinner dance, we checked our jackets and found our places at the long banquet tables. It was the usual fare of rubber chicken and tired peas, but I was out among ‘em (as my mother used to say) for the first time in my married life. This was pretty spiffy. Even the Mayor was going to be there to give a short speech. I was feeling good!

Then she walked in and I was aghast!

I didn’t know her, but she was wearing my dress! My eyes followed her to the far side of the room. With any luck at all the people at our table would not notice, but it would be a different story when we got up to dance. She could dance right past me…our twin dresses might even touch! It would be noticeable then, for sure!

That was the trouble with buying something at Wards. They bought many of the same items. They probably got car-load prices. That’s why I’d been able to afford the dress.

I longed for my jacket, but it was hung in the coat closet. I couldn’t hide.

All through dinner the food was sticking in my craw like a wad of Kleenex.

“What’s the matter with you?” my husband said, “you look like you lost your best friend.”

“Well, see that lady…over there…at the far table…she has my dress on!” I could feel the hot tears start to spring into my eyes. That familiar twitch in my nose that preceded a good cry was happening right there in the middle of the San Diego Athletic Club. Good Grief! How I wished I were dead, or at the least under the table.

The music started playing but I was not anxious to dance.

I excused myself and went to the powder room.

After splashing some cold water on my eyes and touching up my lipstick I picked at my hair a bit I decided to bluff my way through this fashion faux pas. I re-adjusted the belt line of the dress to make it tighter and walked out of the rest room with my head held high. This was the only way to handle it.

When I came out she was heading for the powder room, I didn’t even have to walk over to her table.

“Hi,” I said, my voice quivering, “You don’t know me, but I’d like to compliment you on your cocktail dress…it’s beautiful…you have great taste!” and I moved on toward our table.

I glanced back over my shoulder and winked. She was just standing there at the side of the ballroom with her mouth wide open!

I knew exactly how she felt!