Undercover Mother

Tip: Use a fork to fluff carpet.

You read it right: I wrote “forking carpet.” About every other week, I attempt to dust and push the vacuum around, and sometimes I even take my time and do a good job. One thing that always bothers me is the indentations left from the furniture, causing me to rant on about the forking carpet!

While the indentations in my carpet bother me, I am usually more focused on the pile of laundry that I have to climb over to get into the kid’s bedroom or the loaf of crumbled bread underneath the kitchen table. These are things that I can attack and they go away, at least for a few hours.

I have to laugh when I see people use those furniture coasters (you know, the same ones our grandparents used 60 years ago), which only leave larger dents in the carpet. They don’t work and they look ridiculous. When my bored housewife “friends” talk behind my back, I would prefer it be about my carpet dents then my poor attempt to hide them.

But, I digress. We were discussing what to do about my carpet dents, so I found a tip from Real Simple to try out.

Tip specifics

Use the tines of a fork to gently fluff plush carpet fibers back to their original height, removing dents left by heavy furniture. Now, that’s a real fork lift. 

Please note: I did not write the “fork lift” remark at the end. That was actually part of the tip. If I had written something, it would have been much wittier than that.

True or bull?

Bull. While I was able to rake the carpet around a bit with the fork, the indentation is still clearly there.

Undercover Mother’s revelations

The carpet in my house is about 14 years old, and it looks like a dirty, white cat with a bad case of the mange. I like to tell myself this house is full of love where kids play and blah, blah, blah, but it doesn’t change the fact that the carpet shows every spot of that “love.” Since I was already down there forking away, I tried using some rug shampoo and a toothbrush to fluff those areas up. That made an improvement, but it still isn’t great. And now if you’ll excuse me, I have another mountain of laundry to climb.

Tip: Cover up scratches on wood furniture by rubbing a walnut diagonally across the scratch.

I have children, thus we have a whole lot of scratches on every piece of furniture we own. I don’t know how this happens. I would assume it is not on purpose, but I also assume that my kids will remember something the first time I tell them.  Our kitchen table bears the brunt of the wear and tear, as that is where the meals get served and eaten, the homework gets done and the art projects come to life.

As a part-time working mom, my brain is pretty much void of good ideas, as most of them get used up just putting the kid’s lunches together in the morning. My attempt to correct the mess is to cover it all up with a dark tablecloth to hide the damage, which has suited me just fine in the past. However, my alter ego, Undercover Mother, has access to research that may make me seem not only resourceful but has the potential to make me the envy of my neighbors!

Now, honestly, if you saw my kitchen table, you would be asking yourself why I was even bothering with trying to remove a scratch.  The rest of the table is covered with scorch marks where we forgot to use hotpads, gouges from, well, I really don’t know what, and some type of glitter super glue that managed to seep through the four layers of newspaper and permanently stain the table (so glad we were playing with that product with our bare hands).  However, I am on a quest for information, so for now, let’s forget the fact that my table is a lost cause and focus on the tip I found!

Tip specifics

So I watched a video on how to do this, and it sure looked simple. Put the walnut (pecans, almonds and Brazil nuts also work; just be sure to leave the shell behind) in your hand, rub it diagonally across the scratch, use your finger to generate some warmth into the area you just rubbed, wait a few minutes and then use a soft cloth to rub it out. Simple, right?

I chose two spots on my table and set to work, one was a fine, thin scratch and the other one was thicker and shorter. How lucky am I to have so many to choose from? After rubbing the walnut as instructed across the scratches for a few minutes, I then used my index finger to rub the areas. After about 10 minutes I returned with a soft cloth and rubbed both areas.  

True or bull?

Bull. Both areas looked the exact same, and I did not see any difference in the scratches at all. What I do see now is a giant, filmy smear that the oil from the walnuts left behind, even after wiping with my fancy dust cloth.

Undercover Mother revelations

The video sure made it look good, the same way Pampers makes changing a diaper look fun. I would have been thrilled to have this work because I really can’t afford a new table, nor do I want one with #1 and #2 using it as a landing pad. So for now, the tablecloth will go back on and the scratches will be erased, at least from my mind.