The Bane of my Existence

     If you have ever been to my house you know that most of the first floor is covered with tile. Often, when someone comes over for the first time the first thing they will say is something along the line of, “Oh, I love these floors!” to which I usually respond, “Yes, the bane of my existence”. Then I have to explain to the quizzical looks that these floors are the one thing the builders did right when they built this house in 1965, as they are laid atop a 4” bed of cement. The tiles themselves are Mexican Saltillo, picket style, and there are about three of them in each square foot of floor space. They run from the front door of the house to the back door, from the eat-in kitchen all the way to the family room and the garage entrance. They are under every cabinet, appliance and wall on the first floor. (All in all, about 600 square feet of tiles.) Saltillo tiles are hand-made, no two are alike, and they are uneven and extremely porous. They are not sealed. So they soak up every and any liquid the come in contact with. And they have been the bane of my existence. 

                                                           Nick with Gambit back in 2005
                                                           Here you can see how the floors usually look

     When we bought this house 18 years ago, I thought the floors were red brick with black grout and I thought, “Great! The boys won’t be able to screw these floors up.” And I was right; nothing that the boys have ever done has made a dent in those floors. I have come to realize that nothing short of a large quantity of C-4 will ever make a dent in these floors. After a couple of years of cleaning and scrubbing the everyday messes created by an active family, black gobs started to come up from the grout revealing grey crumbly cement. This was a concern.

     Then one day I knocked a pot lid into the space beneath the stove and was shocked by what I discovered upon crawling in to the cupboard to reach under and retrieve it. (Yes, I probably should have sold tickets to that event.) As I reached under to pull out the lid my hand touched something that clearly was not the pot lid. So I grabbed a flashlight to get a better look before I stuck my hand back in there again. What I found was a perfect 9 by 11 glass baking dish and, much to my horror, rose and gold colored tiles with off white grout.

     And so began my quest to clean the tiles. This started a chain of events which just went from bad to worse, reminding me in many ways of the movie Money Pit. I spent hours on my hands and knees scrubbing with everything I could find, masked to protect myself from all the harsh chemicals, pulling up years and years worth of Mop-n-Glow encrusted grout and peeling layers from the tiles. We rented an industrial floor cleaning machine and tried everything we could think of. When I finally realized I needed professional help, the first contractor who came to the door looked down, said, “I won’t do this job” and walked away. (Not even a “Hi, it’s nice to meet you”.) We ended up needing to have all of the grout replaced, which meant that there were guys on their hands and knees, using a Dremel-like tool, digging out all of the old grout.
    
     Yesterday, for the second time in the past 18 years I have accomplished the goal of getting the floor cleaned. The first time, you ask? It was during the 30 seconds between a contractor completing the “two week” job which took more than three months and our walking out the door to head to Germany for two years. Unfortunately, by the time we got back, the floors (which need to be sealed every year) were already dirty again.

     My boyfriend did a lot of research on the internet and we bought a steam cleaning machine, in hopes that it would do the trick on the floors (along with other cleaning tasks like the grill, the fireplace doors, etc.). I was hopeful, but didn’t really know if it would work on these floors or not. Imagine my delight when he tried it on the floor for the first time and loads of dirt came right up! It is a slow process, but I don’t have to get on my hands and knees with a toothbrush, and it does the job! I started with the kitchen yesterday, and in about three hours the floor was clean. The only problem is that now the rest of the floor is clearly very dirty!

                                             Before, dirty, nasty floor!

                                             The Steamfast!

                                             SO much better!
     I am excited about bringing these floors back to their intended beauty, and even though it is going to take time, using the steam cleaner is not physically taxing, so it just means time and attention, not painful scrubbing. I figure that if I spend a few hours each weekend, I will have it done by the spring, when it will be time to start over and then I will be able to seal them once again. An accomplishment for 2014!