EEWWWEEE!

So after a year of living in this rental house and scrubbing the kitchen and bathroom floors on a regular basis and not managing to get it to look clean in the slightest, I have decided to take drastic measures. This was one of those things were I knew before I even attempted it, it was going to be a sitcom episode.

I decided what I really needed to do was to strip the floors, re-seal them and re-wax/finish. This process would remove all the years of really bad grime and mop n glo from the no-wax vinyl floors. I decided to start small and do the bathroom first. Here are some things that I learned about stripping the floor in your ONE AND ONLY bathroom:

Make sure your neighbor is home, knows the circumstances and it isn't midnight when you do this.

Make sure that you watch what you eat for the day. Excessive dried fruit and caffeine should be avoided.

Girls, check your calendars to see if Aunt Flo might possibly be visiting!!

The next day, start extra early with the kitchen. 4 hours of sleep is plenty. Remeber that it is only 3 steps. Strip, seal, finish. Easy. HA!

First of all, for the kitchen I had to strip twice. I have to say that washing fresh raw wool was less disgusting and had cleaner wash water than stripping the floor. Both times. It was black. I almost tossed my cookies. I clean the floor every 2 weeks with good old fashioned pinesol detergent or straight bleach. This muck was from layers of dirt that the previous tenants just waxed over.

While it does look better, let me say this: Did I really think I was going to un-earth marble? The vinyl is not a color or pattern I would choose and nothing will make that to my liking, no matter how clean. The dark marks around the toilet did not come up one bit and after examination I understand why. The are not the result of paint, dye or water/mold damage. They are burn marks. My therory is the former disgusting hick tenants at one point blew up the toilet and it was replaced with out replacing the flooring.

I'm not actually surprised about this.