You know the feeling, right? Basically, for the last month, my house has been a messy chaotic mess. Paint brushes are in the kitchen sink. Living room furniture is in the basement. And the kitchen. And in the dining room. ORC furnishings and accessories have been arriving which means that styrofoam packaging, plastic wrap, and cardboard boxes are everywhere. I have never looked forward to cleaning my house as much as I have in the past few days. Which is serendipitous because this purple machine of goodness arrived a few days ago too:


That's the Dyson Big Ball Animal 2 and I was lucky to have the chance to try it out. I've long been a Dyson fan and we've used a Dyson Ball DC25 for years. Heck, we even made a cute striped cleaning closet to house that vacuum in our old house:

The world needs more closet gifs ;)

I was curious to see if this newer, more powerful model would live up to its #DysonClean promise. And Dyson was quite generous as I was gifted with a second machine to give to someone who had never owned a Dyson before. Spread the Dyson love, as it were. I decided to give it to my sister, hard-working, home-schooling mama of three. She's got the only house big enough to host our giant family gatherings so it was only fitting I give the vacuum to her considering how often she's had to clean up after me and my unruly brood. You're welcome, sister. Now when I come over for dinner?? :)


After giving the vacuum quite the workout cleaning the living room, here's what I found:
The Big Ball Animal 2 feels a bit heavier than the old DC25 but it's still portable and easy enough to carry up and down stairs. It has an intuitive uncomplicated design, is simple to manoeuvre and move around with one hand. My nephews aged age 10 and 13 do most of the vacuuming at my sister's place and they found the vacuum easy enough for kids to use too. Hmm, maybe I should get Chloe on this!

This machine has a lot of suction and I could definitely feel the difference. It handled floor transitions pretty easily, picking up debris even on unlevel ground. The power cord is nice and long and I like that the cord hook can be rotated downwards for quick unwinding.

The vacuum came with quite a few attachments, some of which I couldn't try out as they're for dog grooming and we don't have any pets. The extended wand came in very handy to get to those hard to reach places. The new moulding was especially dusty and I was able to clean all those edges fairly quickly. I did find though that the instant release wand wasn't as intuitive as on the previous model. Getting the wand back into the holder didn't happen in one quick swift motion but maybe that will come with more practice.



One other change they've made is the removal of the pedal, which takes the vacuum from an upright position to a slanted one. Now, the vacuum locks in the upright position automatically once you overextend the angle past 90°. For those of us that are vertically challenged (ahem), this motion isn't that easy to do. I also wonder if that overextension (you have to bring the arm up and forward and then it clicks in place) will cause some sort of repetitive strain over time and it won't click in place easily.

Overall, I found this to be a much more powerful machine which translated into a quicker and easier cleanup. Sister's experience was the same and she loved how easily it cleaned up her bedroom carpets and carpeted stairs. She's now a convert. If you've never had a Dyson, I feel they're worth the investment. With cheaper, more lightweight vacuums, I've either had to repair them sooner or replace them entirely. Not so with Dyson.

Our old Dyson vacuum is still going and is moving to the cottage and this Big Ball Animal 2 is moving in. The living room cleaned up real good and I can't wait to show you tomorrow just you how pretty she's looking!

Disclosure: I received the Dyson vacuums noted for review. All opinions and words, as always, are my own.