I'm Floored!!

We're getting there! Yesterday it was the great dustbowl of '09. We spent the night with dust mops wiping down walls, baseboards, windowsills, and countertops. The crew did do a good job of cleaning up behind them, but from the nature of the job there was a powdery covering over everything, like snow in August.

We're really pleased with the look of the wood. We used to have a combination of tile, marble, and carpet in our house. We replaced all of that with wood, and since there are no transitions between the floor surfaces anymore the house seems bigger to me. I love the color, but it will show dust. I hope the new dust mop still seems fun to the boys a month from now. So far they fight over who GETS to run it across the floors. This is obviously too good to be true, and I suspect that any minute now they will be fighting over who HAS to run it around.

We had the first hardwood tragedy about 23 minutes after we moved back in. I had 23 perfect minutes with these lovely floors, which is probably about 22 more than I really deserved. I was working in the kitchen when I heard a loud, sustained "HISSSSSSSSS" coming from the den. I peeked over the counters to see what was happening and didn't really notice anything unusual. I figured perhaps it was Emma scooting her laundry basket across the floor or maybe Max, who was outside washing the aluminum trash can with a hose. I went back to cabinet dusting, foolishly ignoring my motherly instinct to further investigate.

Turns out, Emma found a can of Dr. Pepper in the laundry room. I had some extra sodas stacked in there from when I stocked the fridge for the workers. I really have no idea how she managed to puncture the can, but it had been well shaken and when she managed to pop the tab just slightly there was a MAJOR spray of soda that covered EVERY inch of floor, wall, and baseboard both near and far. Then, a huge puddle of soda was poured from the can, and since I had my head buried in the cupboard I didn't even know that she was walking around in it and parading through the house.

All I could think about were those horrible stories about how if you leave a nail in a glass of coke it will dissolve. Seriously, what can it do to wood floors? I had a not too mini meltdown right in my puddle of soda pop, surrounded by my Autumn Blonde walls and showered with a gentle mist of construction dust.

We crawled around for living ever on our hands and knees and wiped and dried and wiped and dried and wiped some more. We were like the Karate kids....wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off. Sniff, sob. Wax on. A seemingly endless spray of tiny, shiny dots of sticky, icky soda. More wax on. It could have been worse. Cleaning a mess like that in an empty room is certainly preferable to having it spray all over furniture and a brand new rug. See? There's always a bright side when you're sloshing in a puddle of pepper.

Today a few of Hannah's friends are coming to help us move the furniture back in place. My homeschool room looks like this....

....and my bedroom has a matching motif.

Actually, it feels so open and clean that I'm kind of sad to fill the rooms back up with furniture. Moving everything out was a great excuse to go through things. Our scout troop was having a huge garage sale last week, so we bagged and donated a ton of stuff. It was perfect timing and it felt great to clean and weed through the junk. We also dusted and polished all the furniture as we piled it into the bedroom and office so everything will feel neat and clean when we unload.

Speaking of neat and clean, I need to go hide the rest of those sodas!