Cleaning the Impossible

Dingy Baseboards

The trim covering the bottom of your walls where they meet the floor seems to attract dirt and scuffs like a magnet. Becky Rapinchuk, who writes the blog Clean Mama, knows how to make them gleam. First, she vacuums them using the brush attachment. Then, she scrubs them from top to bottom using a microfiber rag dipped in warm, soapy water and wrung almost dry. She follows up with a dry cloth to make sure she didn't leave any water on the wood. If your baseboards are white, Rapinchuk suggests keeping a jar of matching paint and a small paintbrush handy so you can touch up scrapes and dings as you are cleaning. One final tip: Run a dryer sheet along the clean, dried baseboards to repel future dirt.