Many homeowners dread cleaning plants, chandeliers and candleholders. A few simple techniques can make those objects easier to clean. You can use water to remove dust from live plants. For delicate plants, use a spray bottle or the sprayer from your kitchen sink. Remove dust from sturdier plants by spraying them with a garden hose. Be sure to soak the plants so that the dust loosens and runs off with the water. You can use compressed air (figure A) or a hair dryer to clean dust from broad-leaf plants. If you can't rinse or blow the dust from your plants, use a commercial plant-cleaning product, but be sure it's suitable for the type of plant you're cleaning. Crystal chandeliers used to be very difficult to clean: each crystal had to be removed and polished individually. Today, however, you can leave the crystals in place and use glass cleaner to clean them all at once. Start by turning off the circuit breaker for the chandelier. Then wrap plastic sandwich bags over each of the electrical fixtures, and secure them with rubber bands (figure B). Lay newspaper on the floor underneath the chandelier, and spray liberal amounts of glass cleaner onto the crystals. Allow the crystals to soak for a minute, then spray them again and allow them to drip dry. Wipe out the "drip cups" on the electrical fixtures before turning the power back on. Some homeowners would rather throw away a dirty candleholder than try to clean it. That's because they don't know the easy ways to remove wax. One way is to store the candleholder in the freezer and then break off the frozen wax. Another is to soften the wax with a hairdryer. You can also place the candleholder in an oven-safe pan and heat it at 150 degrees in your oven for a few minutes. Any wax that doesn't drip off can be wiped away with a paper towel.
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