Cleaning and not cleaning

I'll start my house-cleaning post by discussing my trip to the ReStore, run by Habitat for Humanity. Basically, they sell housing materials to the public, which are in excess or donated to fund building (or fixed) houses of the low-incomed. Did that make sense? How about this: it's a thrift store for housing supplies. How did I now know about this until now?? I have been obsessing over vintage kitchens and bathrooms lately. My bathrooms are vintage; my kitchen is not, and I mourn that. I have been looking at metal cabinets that were installed in the 1950s, but know are mostly torn out and gone. There are a few available on Craigslist. Don't think I'm not thinking about it (I'm talking to YOU, beautiful pink cabinets with turquoise counter tops in Burlington, Vermont, and YOU dark-aqua cabinets with yellow tops in Claremont, California).

So I went to check out the local store, with a trunk-full of glass blocks from my living room to donate. Out with the old I-don't-like, and in with the old I do! (I didn't buy that, but I wanted to!)

The prices were great, basically based on age and condition. That meant most of the old stuff I likes was cheap-cheap-cheap! And I was pleased to see a range of toilets and sinks in a variety of colors. Yay, color!

Side Note: I've been reading about old kitchens lately. Want to know why they are usually white? It was from the pre-antibiotics and antiseptics era... they finally figured out dirty stuff made people sick, so the idea was white kitchens and baths were cleaner (this is also why there are so many metal kitchen cabinets from the time - cleaner). Then, by the 40s, they figure out, hey, got this clean thing down, and color started coming back in. Colorful cabinets, sinks, toilets, etc. Now, people seem so focused on neutral, neutral, neutral sells and holds value. Everything has become boring and beige and white.

OK. I didn't buy the above light fixture, but I found a stack of replacement glass for mid-century light fixtures, in good but filthy shape for $3-5 each. I dug and dug and managed to find a matching pair of round, spacey glasses. $6 later, and a little cleaning, and I switched out the more granny-feeling glass in my bedroom. Wha-la!

Before

After

Hooray!

Now I will talk about vacuuming. No, first I will talk about cleaning.

I don't like cleaning. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being a hoarder, and 1 being Martha Stewart, I would be around 7. If I had to chose between paying taxes and cleaning, the government would win. If I had to chose between grading and cleaning... well, let's just say that's how I get my grading done.

My tolerance for dirty, however, is not as low as my scale for cleaning. So, 1 to 10, 1 being Martha and 10 being a hoarder with feces and cat skeletons, I fall around a 4. Some clutter is OK to me, but dirty dishes are not, and being above to see the bed sheets is not (I don't make the bed, but I do cover the sheets). But if the clutter passes a certain point, then I cease being able to work, cook, or do laundry.

And lately, the whole house is starting to win. Every surface is taxing me. Every room I manage to clean, the cleaning of another room makes it dirty again. Or a cat does. Stupid cats with health issues.

For a while, I blamed the vacuum. I had my grandma's old vacuum which never seemed to do a good job. At one point, S found a clog of cat hair in it, but it hasn't done much better since. I can't find any more clogs, but I'm sure that's it. I watching the "bagless cyclone" style vacuum commercials with envy. And I already mentioned that my vacuum wasn't cleaning up well enough before using my new wet vacuum.

In short, I went from a woman who had never bought a vacuum, to a woman who bought two in one month.

I love this vacuum. And the wet one too.

I love them so much, I don't put them away. I take them from room to room and vacuum.

Which means there is NEW clutter.... vacuums. Accessories. Manuals. Cords.

Last weekend, I spent a FULL DAY vacuuming and shampooing my master bedroom carpet. Back and forth to the bath tub, emptying out the dirty water. The stains slowly faded from the white carpet (faded, not gone... too long set). The dirty water never looked cleaner, but the carpet did. I left the windows open for two days to air out the cleaner smell (ick. not a fan!) and slept in the living room.

Two days later, there was a cat accident on that carpet. An epically huge, gross one.

So I wet vacuumed again, today. Just that side of the room. Then I thought, "hell, I have it out, I should do the hall then put this thing away for a while."

The wet vacuum is easy to use, but annoying to fill and clean, and it takes a really long time to dry. And that brings me to updating the blog. Yes, procrastinating.