White Floors

Our apartment is absolutely beautiful. So are the off white wood floors. They're lovely with the French provencial furniture. What is not so beautiful is keeping them clean. Every hair, every piece of lint, well... everything shows. They are a maintenance nightmare. I told Rob the only people that should have floors like this are neat freak couples without children or pets, or people that have a full time cleaning staff. (Althought the neat freak would also see every hair, piece of lint, etc. and be driven to madness.) Then they're beautiful. It makes you wonder what's on our floors (and carpet - yikes!) at home while we sail through our daily lives in blissful ignorance! Unlike white cars that don't show dirt the way black cars do, the same is not true of white floors. I can hear my mother-in-law's phrase talking about having floors or counters "the color of dirt" and having a whole new appreciation for the wisdom of that in keeping your home looking as clean as you hope it is.

I vote we hire a cleaning person to come in once a week to do the floors and some light cleaning. At a little over $1 an hour US money I think we can probably work that into the budget. Rob doesn't think it's a big deal to maintain them ourselves. Unless he wants to spend his leisure time mopping floors (this is a big place) there is way too much exploring and fun to be had while we're here to be a slave to cleaning. Besides, there are SO many people here that need jobs. Let's give someone else a job while we're here. It won't put a dent in our budget, but it will make a difference to them.