Sticky Floors

Normally I don’t deal with kitchen floors. It is part of my “I don’t do kitchens & bathrooms” deal that my DH offered along with marriage over 35 years ago. At the time I was being stubborn and working about 80 hours a week. I don’t think that he really thought that I would take him seriously; certainly not seriously for the rest of our lives.

But why should I do kitchens or bathrooms if I don’t need to? Obviously, I have been known to take out garbage when it becomes too terrible or empty out the fridge. But mostly I really believe in clean it up as you go (toss out, wipe up, put in dishwasher, toss out empty shampoo containers, etc) which really reduces the amount of maintenance cleaning that is needed.

None of this made any difference when a bottle slid out of the fridge and landed upright on the floor. The height was only a meter which didn’t make a bit of difference to that brown glass which gave a fractured cry, shattered and promptly dumped its contents all over the already dingy kitchen floor.

just the bigger pieces

just the bigger pieces

I mopped up the worst of it and decided I would cope better in the morning. I am the only one home. I set my mental clock to don’t walk barefoot into the kitchen and went back to knitting while listening to Murder in the Dark by Kerry Greenwood.

It is now morning and things don’t look a whit better.

in fact it looked worse this morning

in fact it looked worse this morning

Before getting started on the scrubbing the vacuum seemed in order. No sense getting all those little pieces of glass off the floor while leaving grandma spiders webs intact -right? Also that old candy, the birthday paper, two pens and some cloth bags suddenly decided that underneath the table benches were no longer a safe hiding place. I considered anything up to eye height as fair game. After hunting down and killing my very own sponge, I set to work.

tools of the trade

tools of the trade

Four buckets of hot soapy water and some elbow grease later I sat back and admired my work thinking those tiles had not been that clean since right before they were installed.

I looked around the rest of the kitchen and sighed. Then firmly throttled any further impulse to do something completely out of character and headed to the livingroom with coffee cup in hand. This, of course, is after hanging up rags, emptying mop bucket and returning the vacuum cleaner to their rightful [out of my sight] locations.

before

before

No seriously, I did do a little bit more.

and after

and after

Another Baby Hitchhat

1/3 of the new hat

1/3 of the new hat

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5 Responses to Sticky Floors

  1. AlisonH says:

    Dish-shovelled? I’m floored. *ducking*

  2. Isobel says:

    A woman after my own heart. I’ve had a wonderful cleaning person for 9 years. [edited out- someone else’s health issues] Anyway, she will no longer be cleaning my house or anyone else’s house. HELP! I think I’ve found someone–a whole family–who descent en masse every other week. So I guess I’ll have to practice “Holly’s clean as you go” mantra.

    The way I look at house work is that it takes time away from knitting. :-:

  3. Ann says:

    I’m laughing. I sort of feel the same way until Ira gets home and makes me feel lazy. Oh well.

  4. Helen says:

    I have never mopped our floor….it was always Steve’s job!

  5. S & P says:

    have some marble floors and grout that could use a scrubbing want to visit,

    will supply BLD and a nice bed

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