I could smell the old, stale, cigarette smoke when I first walked in. I was getting my first look at the house I decided to purchase. The yellowed curtain rods told me that smokers lived there for a long time. It turned out that the fifty-year-old home was owned by only one family, and from what my neighbors tell me, they were heavy smokers. But the price was right, and I figured I’d be able to deal with the stale smell and make it livable again.
Thankfully, all of the walls and ceilings were painted before the house went on the market. After I moved in, I got to work on cleaning the woodwork. I started with the hardwood floors. Once over with Murphy’s Oil Soap, then rinse. I could not believe that it took five, sometimes six rinses until the water would not be brown when I dumped it out.