It's Just Dirt...

I've been working at moving into my new kitchen for the past several days. Before that, we were in Oregon, and before that I was... busy. What I'm getting at is... well... it's been a long time since I've really cleaned the house. I'm not the world's best housekeeper anyway. (far from it, in fact...) Oh, I keep it picked up, of course. I don't let it get and stay trashed. And I sweep the floor and wipe down the bathroom regularly and my dishes are done twice daily. But for the last few days I've been feeling choked out by the dust monster. So today, I've spent the whole morning cleaning-- dusting, vacuuming... while finishing the floors, I thought to meself, I thought, "What good is it to have a blog if not to share 'dirty' little secrets?" (Haw, haw, "dirty"!! I crack myself up, I do.) So I'm gonna share one.

But first, let me show you what I have to work with. These are the floors in the living room and den:


They have anomalies such as this:




And horrors like this:




And multi-level interests:


But... I kinda like them. They're... distressed. That's the current 'shabby chic' trend, you know. I'm sooo trendy.

When we bought the house, this floor was in rough shape and stained and painted several different colors, depending on where you looked. (The floor upstairs is similar, but in much better shape and all stained the same color.) It was mainly just... distressing. So my solution was to rent a big sander and sand it down. Then I painted it all a chocolately brown color. And it looked great! But they've had a lot of wear... so now, like I said, it's distressed. (Nathan and I have been arguing about the proper treatment for it... but that's another post for another time.)

I learned that because of all the cracks and wear, it doesn't take well to mopping. But the problem with that lovely, dark color is that it shows every dusty footprint. Eventually, it wears on me and vacuuming is not enough. So, here's my dirty secret. I devised a way to get up all the dust without mopping.

Here it is:




(I'm so ashamed!) I have an old towel designated for just this very purpose. First I vacuum very thouroughly, then I get the towel very damp and wipe it all over with my feet. I get good exercise! And it works! Okay, so it's not so sanitary... but I'm not into sanitary.

In my new kitchen I have beautiful hardwood flooring that will be so much easier to clean. OKay.... I admit that I kinda... sorta... well... I used this method in the kitchen. But! But only because I don't have water for filling a mop bucket. Really. It won't happen again.

My mother taught me better than this.