Best Toilet Cleaning Tip EVERRRRRR!

You might recall upon getting married, I finally got down and dirty with cleaning the bathroom.  I admitted to having been quite spoiled up until I was 28 back here.   Since then, I've learned the art of cleaning the bathrooms frequently to prevent a massive deep cleaning hot mess.  I actually do clean the bathroom once a week, sometimes a little bit more if there's a bit of a need (you know....).

So imagine my frustration when I started noticing a weird ring around the toilet water in our basement bathroom.  We don't normally use the bathroom much downstairs so at first I thought it might be because Jordan forgot to flush and maybe the acidity in the pee left a ring.  But I wasn't sure if that was a legit scientific explanation.  I made sure to flush the toilet periodically downstairs in case Jordan forgot, but the ring persisted.  I couldn't figure out how to wash it out, the Clorox toilet bowl cleaner didn't seem to do much, Clorox bleach left overnight also didn't do much, and even the magic eraser didn't do any magic.

I was stumped.  And irked.  If I put effort into cleaning the effort once a week and it still looks like someone rarely cleans it, what's the point.  What's the point in life?  Or anything really?!  Oh pity party for one.  Woe is me.

And then, I missed the weekly bathroom cleaning in our master bedroom a few times, and then I noticed these weird black lines and just like the basement bathroom, it was too late... the stain stuck and I had no clue how to get rid of it! UgH.

And then, we went off for vacation in California, and though I had cleaned the bathroom before we left, it wasn't on the day before we left as I normally do when we depart for vacation... when we came back, the boys' bathroom had a weird yellow rim near the bottom where the water normally sits.  I couldn't believe it!  Three bathrooms?!  I was without a clue what to do.

After months of no improvement, I finally made the smart decision that we definitely needed some new toilets and maybe a professional cleaning crew to visit our home once in a while.  I quietly added it to my list of "things we will buy when Andy starts his real job post residency in 2017" (so far, there's also a tufted headboard, a nice garbage can that opens automatically with a sensor or a push of a foot, a new Tupperware set or two or three, and a full length nice mirror that won't fall on my kids), and thought there isn't much else I can do.

I thought about the cleaning ladies who used to come to my parents' home.  I tried to recall if there was something used that I didn't have in my repertoire of cleaning products.  Did I just have the wrong tools?  Or did I do it wrong?

Since Wednesdays are for cleaning the bathroom, I looked at the toilets in dejection after my weekly cleaning rituals.  Depressed, I wondered if there was something out on the world wide web that might have known something I didn't.  I quickly googled "clean toilet water stains" and came across a YouTube video of a real woman cleaning her toilet with some Bar Keepers Friend.  She had some pretty insane hard water stains, hers looked brown in fact.  She scrubbed and the stain came off, I couldn't believe it!  And the product she used?  Something I recognized immediately!

Back in 2012, while we were cleaning up our LA apartment and getting ready to rent it out, I had complained about some dirty shower parts I couldn't quite get clean (I actually have a solution for this too, will post later....)  Andy's Uncle Ike had suggested I get a bottle of "Bar Keepers Friend," he claimed it was a miracle worker.  So I got some, applied it to the dirty spots, and nothing happened.  I put it into our box of cleaning products and it made its way to Salt Lake with us.  I knew exactly where it was, and was so excited to try it.  I had nothing to lose anyway...!

I excitedly took a before photo and then while my kids were in school and/or napping, I put on my sleak awesome bathroom yellow rubber gloves, pulled out an old bathroom generic Scotch-Brite wanna-be green scour pad, poured some Bar Keepers Friend on it (after shaking it of course), and went to town on the bathroom water stains I haven't had any luck with.   Before I started scrubbing, I turned off the water, scooped out all the water so the cleaning product would be able to attack the stain without being diluted.

BEFORE: it's not awful, but it's just faintly got a yellow rim 

AFTER: amazing, I could feel the grim rubbing off with the solution 

Our bathroom BEFORE: weird black lines that won't go away

Our bathroom AFTER: gone! O M Goodness!

I haven't yet approached the basement bathroom because it's so cold down there, but if an opportunity arises while the kids are occupied tomorrow, yellow gloves, scour pad, and Bar Keepers Friend and me are on our way to clean that rim!  Is it odd that I am quite excited about the prospect of removing the stains and another before and after evidence that this stuff works?  I wish someone had told me about this earlier, but maybe not everyone knows about it yet.... so here I am screaming it at the top of my lungs....
BAR KEEPERS FRIEND is AMAZINGGGGG!!!

side by side comp: our bathroom

side by side comp: boys' bathroom

POUND IT!