Meg vs. The Playroom: Nasty floor cleaned.

My goal yesterday was to clean the DISGUSTING floor in the sun room/playroom. I had wanted to do it before we moved in, but the house closed late and it just wasn't in the cards. It was caked with dirt. My boys would come in filthy after playing with their toys. Here's the before picture:

At this point, you are probably thinking, "Big deal! that is like a 1 hour job." And you are probably right, if you don't have little ones and/or you are not cleaning impaired like I am. There were meals to make, about 700 requests for snacks or screams for bottles, constant battles for attention, and a bit of dancing around the living room singing Jingle Bells. So it took me half the day just to clean one corner of the floor and then shove all the toys into that corner. Then there was sweeping and vacuuming the corners (and the walls and the ceilings--too many spiders and cobwebs!). When I got to mopping, I realized I was severely under-equipped. This is my trusty mop:

 It was great for our apartments that generally had one small patch of linoleum that didn't ever get too dirty. I love that you can detach the head and throw it in the washer, and the wringer is pretty good too. But this floor was a beast. I don't know how many trips I made up and down the steps to the kitchen sink to rinse what was essentially mud out of this mop. I nearly convinced myself to march to Costco and buy a Shark steam mop, but I'll hold out for Christmas at least. Every time the boys seemed to be entertaining themselves nicely I would sneak out to do one more patch of floor. After once mopping with water and twice with vinegar, and floor finally looked like this:

That's right--you really can't tell the difference at all, and it is still ugly as all getout. But it isn't caked in dirt. So at 12:30 am I called it a day. I'll battle the nasty paint job, unfinished edges, cracks and holes another day (hopefully tile and/or a play floor are in this room's near future); for now the dirt is under control at least.

Now to pick my battle for today...