Man vs. Machine

So after a super long week of over time and stressful deadlines, I rewarded myself with a weekend of hard cleaning! (Yeah that's kind of a joke....kind of not). We have a bonus room (aka the wood room) that is right off our family room. I have some grand plans for this room but for the time being it's more or less our "dog room". It houses the dog's crates, toys, food, and also doubles as a dog run when it too hot outside to play fetch. In fact I play fetch with them in this room for 20 minutes every morning.

When we first moved in the house my mom spent hours hand scrubbing the wood floor until it looked (and felt) brand new. And while we vacuum the room constantly and spot clean any major spills...it had gone the last 2 years without another hand scrubbing. Wow, that was hard to admit! I swear we're not gross people...we're just very busy and barley get the time to vacuum let along clear out an entire room to scrub it. But that brings us to last Sunday....

After dog sitting Henry (a not quite house broken puppy) the whole house was feeling a bit dirty. So I finally bit the bullet and did a deep cleaning, including hitting the bonus room floor. I borrowed a tile cleaning from a friend in hopes this could be a quick and easy task (or at least not a back breaking task). Turns out the floor was so bad that the machine just wasn't cutting it. Literally...it wasn't cutting through the dried on dirt and grime. So I got out the bucket, warm water, distilled white vinegar, and scrubbing rag....and did it just like mom taught me.

                                               Before                                                 After

And "the line in the sand"

I scrubbed and scrubbed every inch of that floor on my hands and knees. It wasn't easy and I went through several buckets of water and vinegar before I finished....Or at least I thought I was finished. Unfortunately, once I stepped back to admire my hard work I realized that I could still see rag streaks (a sign of me not cleaning out my water enough). Then it dawned on me...the machine! The hard work was done so it was a breeze to use the tile cleaner to do a final wash. The beauty of the tile cleaner is that it uses clean water and scrubbers to wash the floor and then suction to pull up all the dirty water and dry the floor to a streakless shine. Which leads me to believe that if I actually keep up on cleaning the floor weekly with the tile cleaner it might not ever get bad enough to have to hand scrub it again (a girl can dream right)

                          The settings                      Clean water/cleaner              The dirty used water 

So I guess...it's more Man plus Machine....than Man vs. Machine. I might have a sore back, arms, and knees but I love, love, love my floor. I had forgotten that the floor was reflective, smooth, and soft...and warm golden yellow in color not "rustic gray" (that last part is actually at bit depressing). And I have decided that our dogs will either have to stop playing and become super fat...or that I need to go buy a tile cleaning and some serious knee pads! 

Ta-da! The finished product!