If I wasn’t a mere 5 feet, 3 inches, I could stand in a crowd at a concert and never have anyone blocking my view. I could reach right up and grab that perfect apple out of a tree, without having to make do with the leftovers thrown to the ground by Mother Nature. And in the grocery store, I wouldn’t have to ask tall strangers to get me that last can of chick peas that is just out of my reach in the middle of the highest shelf.

If I were taller, I could also operate my home more efficiently by saving a few steps. For example, I wouldn’t have to go fetch my stool every time I needed the cheese platter — the one that only fits in the cabinet above the fridge. I wouldn’t have to get the step ladder out to change a light bulb. And I wouldn’t have to pretend I didn’t see the cobwebs that seem to grow overnight on the very top corners of my cathedral windows.

There’s no denying that cathedral windows are beautiful, especially when they look out on a lake view like mine. But with cathedral windows come tall ceilings, which also necessitate the need for a fan to circulate all the air that escapes up to the heavens. Which leads us back to those cobwebs. And dust on the fan blades and window sills and spider webs in those can’t reach corners.

The fan I inherited when I bought the house is a bit shabby looking — a yellowed white with a few knicks here and there. But I’m living with it because I’m afraid to hear my electrician tell me he doesn’t do cathedral ceilings (just like the furnace repair gal said she didn’t do roofs) because he just didn’t have a ladder tall enough and had never mastered scaffolding.

But the dust and the cobwebs?  Well, that’s something I just can’t live with.

So here’s my solution: For the cobwebs in the top windows, and the dust that inevitably builds up on the ledge up there, I use my trusty Swiffer and my kitchen stool. For the dusty fan blades, I use the step ladder and the Swiffer, being careful not to lean back too far in my zeal to clean the next blade that I fall off my perch and land on my glass coffee table (another dust catcher, but that’s another story). For the corners of the cathedral ceilings, where the cobwebs and spiders love to hang out, I attach a Swiffer dry cloth onto the end of my telescopic window-cleaning gizmo (the one I had used to sweep spider nests off the outside of the house every morning until I discovered Spider Man Mitch and his magic potion). It’s not as effective at getting right into the corners as the straight-edged toggling Swiffer head, but it’s the only thing that can reach that high. It gets the job done.

Got a house with cathedral windows? If you’re preparing it for sale and think you’re done cleaning, don’t forget to look up — way up! — to make sure there are no cobwebs or dust bunnies hanging around. You don’t want to give buyers a reason to say, “I bet those ledges up there are really hard to clean!”

That’s exactly what I thought when I toured my house before I bought it. But then I looked out to the lake and that gorgeous view. All thoughts of scaffolding vanished instantly. It’s hard to explain. But gazing out those soaring windows at that big blue sky, I felt 12 feet tall that day. And I knew, this house fit me perfectly.

It still does. Even if I’m really only 5 feet, 3 inches and have to carry a foot stool and step ladder around with me.

I love winter best when the sun is shining brightly, the snow glittering like diamonds as far as the eye can see. And with my lake view, that’s far.

And so I was in a sunny frame of mind this morning, taking in nature in all her winter glory.

The smile on my lips faded somewhat after I took a sip of coffee. I must have blinked too fast, for when my eyes refocused, they sought not the beautiful winter panorama that spread out before me. No. They zoomed in for a closer look at my dirty — very dirty! — window.

I blame my mother for this. She can’t stand a dirty window, always out there cleaning and shining until the glass disappears, leaving nothing but a picture-perfect scene to invite in for a nice cup of tea. It used to drive me crazy as a young teenager, when I spent every Saturday cleaning the house with my mother. Just when we finally sat down at the dining room table to enjoy a glass of something cold while sharing an appreciative glance around at our handiwork, my mother would swear, hop out of her chair and run out to the kitchen, returning with a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towel.

“What are you doing?” I’d ask, knowing only too well that she must have spotted a small speck of dust on the big picture window at the front of the house. “I can’t stand a dirty window,” she’d spit out, angry that rain or dust or both had the nerve to spot an otherwise shiny window. Deep down, I understood her. But how could I sit and enjoy a guilt-free break when my mother was furiously scrubbing a window when she should be the one resting?

Now that my mother lives in a highrise building, keeping those windows clean is a fine balancing act. Take the large living room window, for instance. To clean it, my mother must lean over the side of the balcony and stretch as far as her arms will go, which is exactly three storeys above an asphalt parking lot. Not for the faint of heart! My mother will go far for a clean window, however, and takes on the dangerous task of window-washing on a regular schedule when the weather is nice.

But winter? Well, that’s a different story. Instead of Windex, she uses car windshield washer fluid, the kind designed for good, ol’ Canadian winter temperatures, to clean the windows she can safely reach from the balcony without resorting to a tightrope dance. I am relieved to hear that nearing 80, even she will no longer take the chance of falling off the balcony by leaning over to clean the big living room window. Instead, she will close the blind for a few hours on those sunny days when the rays are directly opposite her window.

“Shine, gaw-damned you,” she spits as she snaps the blind closed, shutting out the sun before it illuminates those annoying specks of winter grime and throws them like taunts right into her face.

I could do the same at my house, but just can’t close the curtains and blinds knowing that if my elderly mother were visiting, she would be out cleaning my windows in no time. That’s because all but two of the windows on my ranch-style cottage are within easy reach.

There is no excuse for dirty windows here, except laziness, which can be reversed, and freezing temperatures, which can be overcome. On bright sunny days like today, I can muster the energy to overcome anything, even -8 temperatures.

In order to protect myself from needless frostbite, I usually wait until temperatures are just around the freezing mark before I fill a bucket with very hot water and head outside with a sponge mop.

Try it yourself. If it’s above freezing, you can wipe down a three-pane window with the hot water all at once, then use regular glass cleaner to complete the job pane-by-pane. If it’s below freezing, it’s best to sponge on the hot water one pane at a time, then quickly squirt on windshield washer fluid and polish it up before ice forms. Then move on to the next pane.

It’s easy. But don’t forget to wear gloves. It’s cold out there!

Is it worth it? You bet! Now you can enjoy the warmth of sun pouring in your clean, shiny windows without the need to curse. Unless, of course, the glass is so clean you forget there’s a sliding door and smack into it head-first on your way outside to scoop up a handful of those sparkling diamonds in the snow.

Turning a weather-beaten deck into a new-look wonder can add thousands of dollars of value to your home.

Want to add instant value to your house? Try power-washing.

If you don’t have your own power-washer, find a sister like mine!

Marian travelled to Leamington from Windsor with hers in the knick of time last month: a two-week period of high winds and high waves had added a slick coating of algae to our severely weather-beaten deck. Having just moved in in the spring, this was our first experience with the perils of living so close to the lake.

My sister had seen our deck before — it’s quite large, running three-quarters of the length of our rancher-style home — and figured that transforming it from sad-sack grey to new-look cedar would take about two hours. What she didn’t count on was the strength of that algae!

In the end, the job took about six hours, with my sister and my husband and I taking turns with the power-washer. The results were amazing! We were all shocked by the transformation.

When the work was done, my husband and I were the proud owners of what looked like a just-installed cedar deck. I swear I could even smell fresh wood! Had I seen the deck in this condition when we purchased the house, I wouldn’t have hesitated to pay $5,000 — maybe even $10,000 — more because I would have thought I was getting a brand new deck. In reality, the deck, as far as we know, was built in the early 1990s.

While we were at it, we power-washed an old picnic table that was so disgusting we were ready to chop it up for firewood.  Glad we didn’t!  It is now a beautiful cedar table, matching nicely with the red cedar Muskoka chair set friends had just purchased for our deck as a moving-in gift.

If you have never enjoyed the thrill of power-washing, I say get thee to the nearest Canadian Tire. There are several models to choose from — gas-powered to electric, 1450 PSI to a more powerful 2000 PSI.  My preference is electric — better for the environment and certainly better on the ears.

While power-washing is, as my sister insisted, fun, this is a powerful tool and it’s important to know what you’re doing before you blow the siding off your house by applying the wrong pressure for the job.   You can also ruin an expensive deck by placing the power-washer tip too close to the wood. The last thing you want are deep gouges in your new cedar deck!

The Internet has plenty of helpful hints for the uninitiated, including this tutorial at About.com.

If you have an Open House coming up and want to show your home at its best, buy or borrow a power-washer and get cleaning. These amazing gizmos are great for cleaning brick or siding and turning a grimy driveway into a show-stopper. If you have a wood fence that is more reminiscent of an old barn, a power-wash will do wonders there, too.

It really is amazing what a bit of water and power can do to improve your bottom line. When it comes to real estate ROI, a power-washer (you can get a good one on sale for about $300)

Who would have thought my old picnic table was really beautiful red cedar?

is a no-brainer.

Power-washing tip of the day: When dirt from your deck or driveway splashes onto your shoes, DO NOT clean it off with the power-washer. It hurts!  Just ask Marian, who learned her lesson the hard way.

Plants, real and fake, need cleaning before they are overrun with dust mites and spider webs.

There are some places you just expect to be less than spotless. The kitchen at the greasy spoon diner for example.  Or your local garage.  Or the supermarket during cherry season (If you thought banana peels were a hazard, try walking across a floor sticky with slippery Bing skins!).

Now think squeaky clean. The germ-free, icky-less state you would expect to find upon entering a room at a reputable hotel. Or in a child’s nursery. How about the doctor’s office? That should scream clean, right?

I thought so, too, until I walked in to the lobby of a family doctor’s office in Kanata to wait for my husband. I had 20 minutes or so on my hands, so I chose one of the uncomfortable chairs on offer and searched for a magazine to read. Finding nothing worth the trouble, I sat back and started to take a good look around.

I couldn’t believe my eyes!

Behind me (I chose a row of chairs in front of a window) were several large plants, each one so dusty that it was impossible to tell — are they real or are they fake? The dust was at least an inch thick, which means they had not been washed down in at least two years — probably more.

To my right a dusty mirror hung crooked on the wall, the only decoration in the drab room.

To my left was an area set aside for children. There were trucks and blocks to play with, along with a handful of books to read. I was horrified to note that the toys and books were absolutely filthy — a white truck was black with grime and the books were likewise dirty and sticky. Can you imagine a small child placing this filth in his mouth? To make matters worse, the carpet beneath the play area was badly stained and in need of a good vacuuming.

It was truly shocking. This is a doctor’s office?

When my husband came out of his MD’s office with his shoes in his hand, he could see that I looked puzzled. He filled me in: The doctor, presumably concerned about germs, asked all patients to remove their shoes and leave them outside his door before entering his private space.

Now that’s funny! I guess the poor guy was so busy worrying about his own health that he forgot to take a good look around the waiting room. If he had, he would have called the Health Unit in for an emergency decontamination.

For me, the biggest hazard in that office was all the dust (I wisely kept the trucks out of my mouth). In 20 minutes, my sinuses had swelled up and a headache raged. A man beside me couldn’t stop sneezing. Little wonder — you could smell the dust in the air.  Not very pleasant.

It was with visions of that horrible doctor’s office in my mind that I got out my stool, wet a rag with tap water and began the task of cleaning the fake fig tree that had been plunked in the corner of my living room by the movers a few days earlier. It took two hours to complete the chore — leaf by leaf — but wow! Gone was the construction dust that had collected during repairs to our condo just before the move. It was now a shiny, new tree that literally glowed beside the fireplace. I had to put my shades on, it was that bright.

Of course, I could have saved time and taken the artificial plant outside and cleaned it with the hose. Or I could have given it a real shower indoors. The problem with both these methods is that there’s no guarantee water spots won’t show up when it dries. Yes, the only way to get a spotless plant is to clean each leaf by hand. The results will be worth the effort!

So if you have an Open House coming up, don’t forget to clean your plants — real and fake. Not only will shiny plants make your house sparkle, they will also be kind to people like me who can smell dust a mile away.  When it comes to selling your house, that’s nothing to sneeze at.

To cut down on the number of cleanings, get yourself a shower squeegee. In our house, the rule was that the last one out of the shower was in charge of squeegeeing the glass shower walls.  This will remove moisture from your bathroom, which will help keep mould away, while wiping away some of the soap and shampoo before they dry into a filmy scum. Using the squeegee will also prevent unsightly water spots.

Of course, the squeegee can’t eliminate all the scum, so at least once a week, you or someone in your family should get scrubbing. The good news is that soap scum can be removed with little effort, thanks to the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Use the Original, not the new Bathroom With Febreze Fresh Scent sponge with soap suds.

With a lightly wet sponge, simply clean the scummy areas of your glass shower using a circle motion. Dry with a cotton towel and you’re done. How easy is that?