Yesterday I breathed a lot of bleach fumes (an F word), scrubbing tile grout in the rental house, so today I mowed and did yard work in the fresh air and sunshine. The renters moved some more things out after work but are now exhausted. They asked if they could come back to clean in the morning. “Well, of course you can,” said I. 

F for Floors

Deciding to sell our house awoke a whole set of fears I didn’t know I had. One of them was the fear of people walking into our house with a critical eye and saying “what on earth were these people trying to do with their floors?” Floor fear.

Although I love things to be visually beautiful and pleasing, I’m not really a fussy person. If you combine that with my other fear of spending too much money, you get a house full of floors that resemble a quilt, with surfaces changing as you pass from room to room.

I pretty much hate carpet, at least for my family’s lifestyle, so we have done away with it. About ten years ago I put cork flooring in the kitchen and dining room. About the same time I went for interlocking bamboo in the living room and hall. The money ran out so I decided to paint the cement in my bedroom and lived with it for years.  I finally put cork down there too, because I love the way it feels, but it wasn’t the same cork as the kitchen floor.

Vinyl sticky back tiles went down in the guest bath and laundry room – that was probably a mistake. The daughter living at  home at the time tried to stop me, but again, the money… I learned my lesson so when we upgraded the master bath we splurged on ceramic tile. The holdouts have been the guest bedroom, which has the original, dark, shiny, sheet vinyl and the lanai which has the original green indoor-outdoor fake turf. Original means 30+ years.

I’ve watched those shows on HG TV. Those renovators snobbishly rip out perfectly good floors just so they can have their seamless beauty running consistently throughout. I might do that too if I had a house no one was living in, and $50K to spiff things up a bit. But no, as I said, I’m not fussy. In fact, I’m fairly happy walking on any surface that isn’t slippery, sticky or covered with dangerous objects.

Our rental house has even more ancient flooring, and it’s there that I’m most tempted to put down something new. But suppose I put down something I liked but the new owner did not. What a waste of time and resources! How to make it appealing and contemporary without wasting time and money… that is the question.

My sign for F was taken in Hayward, Wisconsin. The Feed Mill really is a feed mill and has sold animal food  and field/garden seed since I was a small child.