Magic Cleaning Solutions!

Kitchen confession time: Our kitchen floor - it's gross. No joke. I mean, we vacuum and we mop it every now and then... but it's a high traffic area, our backdoor is in the kitchen, and there's a lot of wear/tear/slop/spill/traffic/dirt etc that goes through there.

And I hate cleaning the kitchen floor. Seriously - in fact, cleaning anything in the kitchen is hands down my least favourite thing to clean. I could make beds all day! Fold laundry? No problem! But dishes? Ugh. Clean the oven? Let's just burn it off. Wash the floor?.... couldn't we just replace the tile? Blech. Hate it.

And I'm an avid pinner (quick explanation: pinning is what you do on pinterest - like a social media style bulletin board, where you "pin" good ideas and things you find on the internet, can see other people's pins and repin their pins, etc etc etc). and every single time I see a magic-cleaning-solution-type-pin I jump on it.

 

www.pinterest.com

My heart leaps! My breath comes short! I'm certain of it - this, THIS pin, will hold the magic cleaning solutions I've been looking for. I'll simply grab some vinegar, baking soda, and an organic sponge and those items will leap from my hands and my house will be fresh, and shiny even. It will be miraculous, people will marvel at how clean and tidy my house is! "How do you do it?" They'll ask...
"Well... it's just a little something I saw on Pinterest..."

HA.

They never work. And as I was faced with this kitchen floor, I momentarily considered asking the Hubs how he felt about hard packed dirt? (I mean, you could rake, sweep and just pound the gunk into the floor that way) But then I remembered... I already KNEW the magic cleaning solution for that floor. It's cheap, it works wonderfully, and there's an almost unlimited supply of it.

You guessed it: elbow grease.

That's right. I filled up a bucket with really really hot water, some dishsoap, a couple splashes of bleach, grabbed a tire brush from the hubs' car detailing bucket and just went at it.

Yup, it was hard. My arms hurt, I smell like bleach, my cleaning jeans are going to be acid washed after they come out of the next round of laundry, and the house smells like a pool. But my kitchen floor? It's glorious! I didn't even know those crappy linoleum tiles could look that good! And even though it took about 45 minutes of my life, I can look and smile and know that I managed to get down on my hands and knees and make that crappy old floor shine.

The only problem now is that the floor is wet and I can't get to my tea...

Shine on, and see if you can find any elbow grease lying around your place. ;)

Tea.