All natural wood polish? Yes please!

Having the heart of a hippie & being cheap I often look for home cleaning products that I can make from what I already have around the house.
Plus the less chemical crap we use the happier and healthier we are!
So after scouring the internet for all of about 2 minutes I found a few recipes that caught my eye.

SO EASY!

As per usual with me I generally pick and choose from two or three recipes and then hybridize them to make something new, because that is how I roll.

Since we moved to Las Vegas we have gained a few pieces of furniture from my parents house - most were in need of some serious cleaning and moisturizing (kinda like our skin).

What I made...
There were quite a few recipes for basic dusting, but I wanted something a wee bit more intense especially since they will now be residing is such an arid desert climate.

Super Rich Furniture Cleaner and Polish

• 2T coconut oil (I like a less refined oil that retains some of the yummy coconut smell)
• 2T olive oil
• 1/3C white vinegar
• 1/3C water
• quick squirt of dish soap

That's it. Mix it up a bit and dip a rag in and go to town.

I was really surprised and impressed how well it cleaned and left the wood so much more alive looking.

You can add a few drops of lemon essential oil if you would like, but I was too lazy to go get my oil and it was glorious even without the oil, but either way works.

The ingredients.

The creation.

Here is a picture of the bookcase I was cleaning. I don't know much about it other than it has been at my parent's house for as long as I can remember so at least 35+ years.

The bookcase before.

 Here is the bookcase immediately after I wiped it down with the mixture. What a difference!

The bookcase immediately after.

I took this picture 24 hours later without any additional applications.

I used the same polish on several other pieces and have been just as tickled with how they have all turned out. 

Since this recipe is richer in oils I most likely won't use it to clean every time, but I will use it regularly to keep the wood nourished and healthy.

Thank you to Brittnay Thomas at The Pistacio Project for the initial inspiration! Keep up the amazing work.

Have you made your own furniture cleaner or other cleaning product? What is your favorite?

2,400 miles driven and so many more to go...

We made it to Las Vegas!

Holy hell that was a long trip. 

When planning the days we did not take into consideration the slowness of two fully loaded moving trucks both towing vehicles trying to cross the Rockies. Honestly, I think the downhill might have been worse and I am probably lucky that some of our driving at night I was not able to see what I am sure were sheer drop offs and cliffs off the edge of the road in the construction zones.

With all that said even with the lack of sleep there were some incredibly beautiful scenery along the way. 

Some state by state highlights and observations!

Iowa was hillier than I expected. I didn't get any pictures in Iowa I guess.

IOWA - check!

Nebraska is what I though Iowa would be like, but it did have a few gorgeous sunsets and we most likely drove through more rain than we will see in a year in Nevada.

Nebraska - Check!

OMAHA! OMAHA! OMAHA!

I have never spent time in Colorado before this trip and everything west of Denver (everything east of Denver I didn't see because it was dark) was crazy amazing. Scary as hell to drive a box truck towing a car, but still amazing. Maybe part of the scariness was a cocktail containing: fear, lack of oxygen due to altitude, too much caffeine, no sleep, a cat in a carrier singing to me, and anticipation. 

COLORADO - check!

Driving along just singing some John Denver...

Utah part of it is flat. Part of it is not.

Both are beautiful, but I adored the not flat part! Holy hell. The colors and the rock formations and the sky and the everything. It was like being in an episode of CSI Miami where they used all the funky filters to make everything crazy colorful.

UTAH - check!

The flat part.

And then you get to this... (don't mind all the bugs on the window and just gaze at natures glory!!!)

The NOT flat part!

Seriously stunning. I need to go back and play...

We had a brief sojourn into Arizona that I was not expecting, but now I have spent time in Arizona outside of the airport!!! Our time was limited this time, but you offered some stunning beauty and I will be back!

ARIZONA - check!

Well, hello Arizona!

Our last night we stayed in St. George, Utah (for all you CNY peeps I kept calling it Lake George which is NOT the same thing) so our last drive was just about two (2) hours. Of course we traversed three (3) states in that time frame so that's cool.

Finally...NEVADA!!!

Hello gorgeous!

Thankfully we hired a few strong and able bodied men to unload the truck since it was nine million degrees and it was worth every single penny!

BooBoo was pleased to be out of his tiny plastic prison, but his tail is one for another day!

The sea of boxes gets shallower by the day and progress is being steadily made. In all my moves this one really feels like coming home. Maybe I was a desert dweller in a previous life...who knows, but let's bring on all the adventures the Southwest has to offer and I will do my best to document them for you.

Here are a few fun stats from our journey and some I will elaborate on in future posts I am sure.

Have you ever moved somewhere and felt like you had found your place?

Tell me where that place is for you!