In the winter there wasn’t much to do about the streaks, but every spring I would spend hours applying expensive cleaners and waxes to the hull, only to have them reappear two weeks later. 

One sunny afternoon, spent scrubbing rather than sailing, I ran out of the marine “restorer.” Desperate to get the job finished, I went below to look for a substitute.

Bleach would only worsen the oxidation and dish soap wasn’t good to put in the water, so my options were limited. I headed topside with a generic glass cleaner, wondering if it would take less time to travel to the marine store than it would to experiment with something new.

The experiment paid off.

Unlike the special, expensive marine “restorer,” – which has to be slopped onto the hull and rubbed in – the glass cleaner sprayed on easily and didn’t make a mess of my inflatable. Skeptical, I let it sit for a minute, not quite long enough for it to dry, before swiping the area with my finger. 

The greasy black streaks, which had only faded after a vigorous scrubbing with the marine cleaner, rubbed right off. 

I nearly fell out of the inflatable. 

Ecstatic, I sprayed the entire hull and ran down below for a roll of paper towels. Ten minutes later I was sailing around the harbor.

I may never own another white-hulled boat again, but as a homeowner I have discovered a new nemesis: 30-year-old grime-gray wallpaper.

In anticipation of the arrival of our first born, I spent hours scraping more than four layers of wallpaper from the future nursery, using nothing more than a putty knife. I tried some other methods, including applying a vinegar solution, fabric softener and water, but it seemed the approach that made the least mess was to scrape it off dry and hardened.

In a given day, I was lucky to remove 10 square feet of the wallpaper and would often leave signs of the glue – a hard, yellow-looking smear – behind.

We finished the baby’s room last week and I have moved on to other areas of the house. Now, I am working within earshot of where my wife typically spends her free time reading books and, as she puts it, “creating life.” In response to the slew of profanity she is now directly exposed to, she suggested I try applying the same glass cleaner we found so useful on the sailboat to the wallpaper.

“Until I see otherwise, this is the best way to do it,” I huffed stubbornly, continuing to strip the walls a millimeter at a time.

A minute later, my wife cackled maniacally and descended on the walls in another room, a bottle of glass cleaner in one hand and a scraper in the other. In five minutes, she had cleared more than I could have in a short week, leaving behind clean, white plaster in her wake. 

We combined forces, employing the same technique that had cleaned our boat of the black streaks, and completely stripped one room and half of another within an hour. 

It may be made for glass, but I call it “Elbow Grease.”

- Nate Jones