“I’m sharing how to be a badass housewife by doing typically-man-things on the outside of your home, as part of a sponsored post for Socialstars #ZepSocialstars ”
By now it’s no big secret that I’m not your typical housewife. Doing chores does not bring me great joy, (and if it brings you great joy, you need to find a new hobby), but living in a clean house does provide me with a sense of pride. This is a great conundrum, perhaps the biggest conundrum of my life. I don’t have the income to justify hiring a full time housekeeper, but wouldn’t it be nice?
Instead of hiring someone to do my dirty work, I’ve just learned to get smart about it. I have a daily chore list that I follow, and I have a chore chart for my teenager to help me out around here too. I mean, I don’t know about you, but this is exactly why I had kids. OK, maybe not exactly why I had kids, but it was definitely a perk of birthing those beasts.
With Kyle not home to take care of the “manly” things around the house, that responsibility falls on me from time to. . . OH who am I kidding? It falls on me all the time, which is exactly why I outsource my lawn work. God forbid I mess up my blow out while mowing the lawn.
My most recent “manly” duty has involved playing with my new toy, and by “toy”, I mean my new pressure washer. I would love to show you the dirty things I wrote in the driveway like a kid with chalk, but I’m not sure this is the place. This little obsession started when we were fined $100 for having mold on the side of our house in Georgia and then had to pay someone $150 to pressure wash it. I was dumbfounded, especially when I walked into Home Depot a few weeks later and saw a Ryobi pressure washer for $159. We were renting a house a few states away at that time, so I didn’t think much of it, and went on with my life.
Now that we’re back in Florida and I’m trying desperately to make this place home, the black mold all over the driveway and our front porch has been driving me bonkers. It even gets slick when it’s wet – that’s disgusting, you guys. And I swear to God, if I fall and break my tailbone one more time, I’m going to cut my butt off.
So I hauled my rear end to Home Depot and bought that pressure washer so I could do a one-over on our front porch, columns, and the driveway.
Some new people moved in up the street from us, and they’ve got this lovely little set-up on their front porch. It makes me feel like whatever the opposite of June Cleaver is, because we had some lovely, rusted beach chairs with wet beach towels out front, and moldy pillars. Cute, right?
Peer pressure got the better of me, and while I was at Home Depot, I noticed some super cute Adirondack chairs in fun, bright colors. I threw a couple onto my pallet cart and picked out a couple pretty, hanging flowers to liven things up a little bit. You can’t be a badass housewife with out a little color in your life. That’s why awesome housewives wear beehives and red lipstick. Big, bold, everything.
I put the pressure washer together all by myself, while Styles held the instructions so I could look at them, loaded some Zep All-in-One Pressure Washing Concentrate into the soap holder thingiemebobber, followed the directions, and clicked on the power button.
Nothing.
Not a buzz, not a sound, not a vibration from the thing. I yelled at Styles for not plugging it in right, I reset the outlet, I reset the power cord, I changed outlets five or seven times, I shed a tear.
It would absolutely be my luck to get a broken machine, just ask Amy at As the Bunny Hops . Technology and machinery hate me.
Styles told me to try depressing the lever to see if it would start. What does a 13 year old know? Of course that’s not going to work! My nostrils may have flared a bit at his thinking he knew better than me. So I tried it, just KNOWING it wasn’t going to work, lo and behold, the motor revved up and water started spraying right out of the very effective nozzle. A few seconds later, a beautiful, foamy All-In-One Pressure Washing Concentrate joined the water on my driveway. Glorious.
I admit it now, I might make pressure washing look good, but it took my teenager to teach me how to work the flipping machine. And it takes Zep Commercial pressure-wash cleaning concentrates to make your outside surfaces look good. They’re specially formulated to clean hard-to-remove mold, dirt, grime, oil and other stains from those outside surfaces so that you don’t have to use any elbow-grease. You can get it at Home Depot while you’re there picking up your new pressure washer, because every good homeowner needs one. You’re really supposed to wash your home every 12-24 months to deter mold growth and protect your paint and siding.
Pressure washing is not difficult. You use the soap nozzle to spray the cleaner onto the surface, let it sit for 5 minutes, then switch to the pressure washing nozzle and get to work. It’s a good time, and seriously ladies? I felt like such a badass when I got done. If you need a visual, this video is perfect for you:
Your home is so good to you, you should be good to it too.
Jamie @ Southern Revivals says
Yep. Any tattooed, red haired, bad ass housewife must be my bff. the end.
Veronika says
Your remark about breaking tailbones (“And I swear to God, if I fall and break my tailbone one more time, I’m going to cut my butt off.”) made me laugh out loud! I bet your house looks amazing now that it’s squeaky clean on the outside. I need to get myself one of these!
Mahi Yacht Cleaning says
Even the little girl on the picture is kick ass, and yes ZEP is a great product to get nice clean surfaces and patios done. Our costumers are always happy with our work.
www.touringcyclistclub.org.uk says
this is true.