Cleaning Oxidized and Moldy Aluminum Window Frames

I've been meaning to clean the window frames in my bedroom since August of 2012. Shame on me. They are aluminum and covered in white crud (oxidized) spots and mold. Now that I am getting around to painting the bedroom in the near future, I was determined to take care of as many details as possible, and this really needed to be done.

I was cleaning out my laundry room (part of the total house overhaul) and realized that I had an S.O.S. pad in there. I figured it was worth a shot because it is course and might scrape of some of the crud and mold on the aluminum. I had no clue it would take off all of it! I didn't even have to wet the S.O.S. pad! I was like "Holy Wow!" I accomplished this with just a few swipes.

I have a lot more of the frames that need this treatment, but this discovery needed to be shared with the world.

So if you have aluminum window frames, just go out and get yourself some S.O.S. pads and just wipe off the nasty stuff.

It's seriously that easy.

House Progress

We are getting a new kitchen sink, faucet, and countertop installed next week! I'm pretty excited because the kitchen we have is original to the house, minus the primer on the walls. The countertops are stained and the sink is a nasty porcelain sink from hell...which also gets stained very badly. For a while the sink was leaking pretty bad, and the sprayer doesn't work at all. The sink is also only 5 inches deep, and I need a deeper one.

UPDATE: This is the new sink right before it got installed.

Willow's room is STILL not painted, but tomorrow I will be using the cattle prod on the hubby to get him moving along.

UPDATE: Progress has been made on Willow's bedroom. You can see that HERE.

We've been trying to find curtains for our bedroom and living room, but the ones I got for the living room are not working out. I got the crazy idea to try Willow's royal purple sheers in the living room, complete with a swag on top, and it turns out they are really beautiful with the light shining through. I promise I will give them back to Willow when her room is ready. ;)

We are also looking for a bright jewel toned comforter set for our bedroom to go with pictures in ornate gold frames and our buddha statue. We're also considering bamboo shades with pretty colored sheer curtains on top. This old house is a lot of work!

Willow's Room

We are still working on Willow's room. We've had a few other things that we are doing, so that doesn't help any. We're also having a little problem with the purple paint not covering well, but we will do the best we can. She might end up with three colors on her walls, instead of the two! A while back we picked up some things for her room from Ross that we were saving for her birthday, but we wanted her input, so she knows what's going on now.

Yesterday we took her out to do some errands, and she gave us a really hard time. I decided to put the work on her room on hold until she turned her behavior around. So yesterday she had to work off the attitude! We cleaned up some weeds in the front garden together, and the painting resumed today.

Here's the two paint colors we're working with. This paint came from a second hand home improvement store. These two cans cost us $2.

UPDATES!

I never did get around to posting pictures of how Willow's room turned out, so here I am over a year later posting an update. I only have a few cell phone pics, but I figured it was better than nothing!

I will include a list of the items we bought and materials we used at the end of this post. 

You should also check out the first BEFORE picture of what the room looked like when we moved in and we were cleaning boxes out of the house! You can find that picture on the very bottom of this post.

~Bamboo shade: Home Depot

~Shiny, pink sheer curtains: Ross

~Five colored standing light fixture: Walmart

~Gold picture frames, plastic, set of 10, all different sizes: Ross

~Bed comforter: Walmart

~Purple sheets and pillow cases: Walmart

~Pink bed skirt: Walmart

~Green fuzzy pillow: Walmart

~Blue fuzzy body pillow: Ross

~Silver curtain rod set: Walmart

~Glass hanging candle holders (not used for candles): Ross

~Pink Angry Bird pillow: Walmart

~Frosted glass vanity light fixture: Home Depot

~AMAZING octopus art print: By the talented Amy Weber. You can find her work on here on Etsy: 

AmyWeberArt

~Orange dresser: Vintage item that came with the house

~Orange and yellow roll-top desk: Vintage furniture that came with the house

Painting materials: 

We used all the usual materials which includes: 

~Drop cloth

~Paint rollers

~Sponge brushes: (better than bristle brushes!)

~Painter's tape: (I cannot express how important it is to use FROG TAPE! The adhesive is much better quality than cheaper brands)

~Exacto knife: (to cut painter's tape if it is not placed correctly, AND in case you try to pull the tape off and the paint is too thick.)

~Damp washcloth: to wipe up boo-boos and spills. 

~*Dap* fast n' final lightweight spackling

~Electric palm sander with fine grit sandpaper

~Lots of elbow grease and hard work