In the still of the night

...we've been cleaning, cleaning and cleaning some more. After putting our little moon pie to bed each night we've been heading to the new house and cleaning. We've logged over 9 hours scrubbing this dinosaur of ours and I'm sad to say we aren't even halfway done.

Our problem is the furnace. Not the current furnace, we were able to negotiate a new 95% efficient gas furnace as part of the deal, but the old furnace was oil and it was original to the house---yikes!!! We think the furnace overtime left an oil film throughout the house. It's worse in the lower level and near the air vents. The walls have an oil film on them with a good measure of grey/black streaks on the lower level. That can be solved with a good coat of primer and paint. The real time suck has been all the wood work. Every room has beautiful walnut baseboards with several grooves, the windows have walnut valances and the doors and door frames are all solid wood. There are two fireplaces with woodwork surrounding them and several built in bookshelves in walnut. And all that gorgeous wood is hiding underneath oil film. After a good cleaning with a mild de-greasing dish soap and a long conversation with the woodworking expert at bi-mart we have a plan of action. But while we are making progress on the wood we are completely stumped on the tile. There is so much tile and it is DIRTY. Both the tiles and the grout and I am at my wits end trying to get it clean. I've scrubbed with hot soapy water. I tried vinegar. Against my better judgement I tried a bleach/water solution. And I finally resorted to scrubbing the whole bathroom floor with soft scrub. If I don't give myself cancer this week I'd like to find something to get this stuff clean. Next on my list to try is oxy-clean. I also heard peroxide can whiten tile. Anything else? Any secret tile cleaning tips for me? 

While tile continues to stump me we do have scrubbed bathrooms, fixtures, kitchen, windows and have treated all the old wooden closets with vinegar to remove musty smells. So the first floor is coming along. Progress is nice!