(Don't) Come On, Irene

Whew!  Looks like Hurricane Irene has decided to hit land farther up the coast, so we are staying put on Gilligan's Island and so far have just had some pop-up thunderstorms and wind.  I do not envy the people north of us, who are battening down the hatches and hoping for the best.

What with both my part-time jobs trying to get all full-time on me this week, I'm feeling over stretched, so it didn't take much convincing from Shawn for me to stay here and just wait til next weekend to go to the Taj.  Next weekend being Labor Day, Shawn is off and we can accomplish more anyway.  That's the theory, at least. 

Oh....remember the cool sink I scored off The Craig?  Well, it had this leetle old hard-water stain in the bowl, next to the drain.  Hmmm, I thought, a little Magic Eraser will take that right off.

Not.

Magic Eraser and C-4, maybe, but otherwise that stuff was NOT coming off.  I tried everything I could think of.  I went online and tried all the suggestions (lemon juice, white vinegar, Borax, bleach, mild abrasives).  You name it, I tried it.  And....nothing.

I thought we'd just wasted $60 on a sink that would always look dirty.  And that was sooooo not gonna happen!

So, I went medieval on that bad boy.  I got my handy dandy flat-head screwdriver and convinced the hard water scales to move on down the line.  Now, I'm not necessarily recommending that you go after your porcelain bathroom fixtures with metal blades, but it worked for me.  If you do have some serious calcium deposits and decide to try it, just remember to be gentle and use the blade at a low angle...you don't want to stab at it and scratch the surface.

Anyway, it's not the Martha Stewart-approved method, but who has the time to forumlate their own hard water stain remover and package it attractively in a repurposed gunny sack?  Not me.

Well, that's the latest.  Sad that a little stain removal is the only Taj-related progress to report.  But, the Fall 2011 Ikea catalog arrived today, so there's hope yet!


Off to drool over cheap, breakable goods with a Scandinavian flair....