My project

If I haven't mentioned it in a post before, I'm saying it now: I HATE cleaning house! Always have, and I'm sure I always will. I'm fine with the light cleaning and keeping things picked up and looking clean and in place, but I'm terrible about the deep down, under the surface cleaning.

My kitchen, laundry room and bathrooms are vinyl flooring...23 year old vinyl flooring. We need new floors so bad (but building up an emergency fund comes first). The vinyl is a bit "textured" so dirt is down in every little crevice. I have a nice Shark steam mop, which has helped get some of it up, but it's just dirty and dingy looking and nothing seemed to get it clean.  Did I mention I hate cleaning house?

This morning I grabbed a bottle of ammonia (straight ammonia) and a scrub brush and started working on the floor of the bathroom the kids share. OH MY! What a total difference a little down on the floor scrubbing by hand makes! It was almost like looking at a new floor.  Not much ventilation in this little bathroom and I was soon fumed out...but so happy with the results of the little bit I was able to accomplish.

Then I decided to open the back door for ventilation and start on the kitchen floor (and added a little water to the ammonia to help cut down the smell a bit, but it makes for more scrubbing to get as clean).  It is literally going to take me forever to get it all done.  I worked for about an hour and maybe got a 10th of it clean. Then I stopped as I knew if I kept going I'd whack out my back and/or neck and not be able to move tonight.  So, I'm just going to have to work on it a little at a time.  I did another small area this afternoon.  Here is a side by side comparison of a clean area next to a dirty area (the dirty part was even after I had just steam mopped it earlier this morning).

Kind of hard to see with the lighting and flash, but definitely a huge difference.  It really just has to be done, as I'm not getting a new floor anytime soon.  My plan is to go over it all with the ammonia and scrub brush, then go over it with the steam mop and then put something on it to give it a shine again. It's pretty dull looking.  Not sure to buy for that yet, but I'll have to do some looking at the store and see what they have.

So, there you go - you get to see how totally disgusting and dirty my kitchen floor (and bathroom) has been...for a very long time now.  I suck.  But I am happy that I finally found something that will take up the built in grime and dirt in all those little crevices.