FILTHY FLOORS

Next month it will be three years that we've lived here. Six people, five of which are generally home all the time. White carpets. 

We've never cleaned our carpets. 

Gross.

We have a great vacuum, but still ... three years, six people, white carpet. 

I keep waiting for Tim to get a job so that I can rent or buy a carpet cleaner, but that hasn't happened. It occurred to me last month that I could try and borrow one. Duh. I wasn't sure who owned a carpet cleaner, so I asked on Facebook and three friends offered theirs to me. Should have asked a couple years ago! I've had one sitting in my bedroom for about three weeks now. Three weeks. That's embarrassing confession number one.

I finally had time yesterday and today to get the job done, so I've spent several hours cleaning our living room and three bedroom carpets. The only area I didn't do was under our bed. I just didn't want to waste time and cleaning solution on an area we never walk on. 

Here's embarrassing confession number two. Some floors were much dirtier than I realized. 

Think you can figure out where the beds were?

Oh. my. word.

That's repulsive and beyond embarrassing.

Teebs and Naomi don't have much on the floor in their room, so I just scooted stuff around to clean, but I hauled everything out of Silas and Devon's room and put most of the living room furniture and all the books from my book sale in the entry way and on the hearth. The couch and chair just got moved around as I cleaned. My house has looked like this all day.

That would be a mattress, night stand, and blanket box in the kitchen.

And that would be a bunch of books, a sideways coffee table, and a bunch of cushions (slipcovers are getting bleached tomorrow).

Here's what I looked like for several hours. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

I did take one break since Teebs wanted to snuggle when he woke up from his nap. Rocking chair, closed eyes, sweet little kid. Bliss.

Then I went back to work, doing each room multiple times. Here's embarrassing confession number three. My tub looked like this countless times today as I dumped gallons upon gallons of dirty water out.

That came from my carpets! The ones I vacuum regularly. The ones I sit or sprawl out on. Yuck!!!

I never reached a point where the water was staying clean, but it was definitely cleaner at the end of my night than it was when I started last night. I finally quit just because I'd used up all the cleaning solution we had. It was perfect timing, though, because I had reached the point of just needing to sit down and not hear anything loud.

I'm not sure which I want more now, a cleaner of my own or laminate extended to all the carpeted rooms. For now, I'm just grateful that I finally thought to ask to borrow a cleaner and that someone loaned me theirs. I think I need to make a point to do this again once or twice a year. Hopefully the job will go faster and be less gag-inducing if it gets done more frequently.

Since selfies with the people we love are the thing to do, here I am at the end of my date with Mr. Carpet Cleaner. Love him!