In The Flow

I spent the Holiday week-end working around the house. I would say puttering, but I worked too hard for that. I still did not get it all done, but I made a dent in it! On Saturday I super-cleaned my kitchen floor, with a scrub brush, a toothbrush, and a whole lot of Greased Lightning. Then I put 2 coats of sealer on it, and I can see it has made a big difference already. Last June, I put down a new floor in my kitchen. I'd had the opportunity to think long and hard about what I wanted as I was just too poor for a bunch of years to do anything more than live with what I had. Which was not terrible, but the sheet vinyl was dated and it had a few dings in it. One day I decided to clean under the refrigerator (?? who knows why!) and when I moved it, I put a tiny tear in the vinyl. It was no big deal, since you could barely see it. My corgi found it though, and while I can say that as a puppy he never chewed up any of my shoes, he did chew up my kitchen floor. He looks like such an innocent baby!

So, I removed that layer of sheet vinyl, down to the previous layer, which was really dated. I still could not quite afford the new floor, so I decided I would just have to live with it for awhile longer. It already had a small tear in it, so I'm sure you can guess what happened. Yes, he is small, but mighty. Especially true as a puppy! Ugh! I went down to the original floor. Boy, that was the ugliest floor I have ever seen, although I'm sure in 1960 it was the bomb. (Jackson Pollock imitation of red, yellow and blue paint splatters on a dark grey back ground, in a residential---thin--composite tile) It was so ugly I was too embarrassed to take a 'before' picture to go with my 'after' picture.

I decided that I wanted to do a floor in commercial tile for a few reasons: 1.) I could do it myself 2.) it would last 3.) it would not cost a fortune to install.

All three of these things have proved to be true. The added benefits are that it looks better than I could have ever dreamed it would, and it cleans up like a dream. And it is corgi proof!

However, with no sealer on it, it got dirty way too fast. My next step is to put a hard finish on it, although maybe only one coat. I sort of like the soft patina it has taken on, and I don't want it to look like a hospital floor. That will be after my knees heal: they are raw after my perfectionist hunt for all specks of dirt prior to putting down the sealer!

Not putting the sealer down also slightly changed the coloration of the tile. A years worth of traffic kind of sinking into that composite surface, I guess. I found this out because I am getting ready to install a new counter top, sink, and finally add a dishwashing machine, which I have never had in this house! The counter top that I chose based on my leftover tile samples did not exactly match up with the real floor. So I continue to ponder the counter top issue, and will keep you posted. Normally I would post all this house stuff on my other blog but in reality, the adoption, and the progress that has been made there, and the sudden movement of our files has jolted me into reality. They are coming home. I live in a very small house, and adding two more people to it is going to be challenging. So making it as efficient as possible is a priority. I still have alot of things to do around here before the girls get here. I think many of us on this road get entrenched in a survival mode, our biggest fear being, "Will they really ever come home?". For me, one of the ways I manifest my fear was by not working very hard on things I needed to get done. I almost felt like I was tempting fate, although I know in my heart God's blessings are bigger than that. It has been and continues to be a struggle of faith. Everything came into clear view however, on my recent trip. And so now I am very, very busy!