Kitchen floor woes

I spent a better part of this afternoon lamenting how much I hate my kitchen floor. It puzzles me as to why anyone would install such flooring. Not only is it ugly, but also impractical. It also puzzles me as to why, after nearly nine years in this house, I still have this floor.

Well. It doesn't puzzle me that much ($$$).

I clean it only once a year. 

Don't judge, I Swiffer and spot clean in between. And I have a dog who does her share of, ahem, cleaning it. 

But see all of those deep grout lines? Scrubbing around each brick tile and into those lines is beastly. It's much harder than getting foundation out of the lines on my face.

Douse with cleaner.

Scrub with rough sponge.

Wipe with cloth rag.

Rinse with rag.

Rinse again in between each brick tile until it's done.

Roughly two hours of scrubbing and rinsing.

Similar process to removing makeup, but much more labor intensive. 

Yes, I could use a mop but scrubbing seems to get it cleaner. Though with only doing it once a year you'd think it wouldn't matter to me. 

The up and down off of the floor is quite a workout in itself. All those squats I've done over the past few years have paid off. That's a reason to be thankful.

To be honest, I struggle with the issue of being content with the floor I have. I admit to a daily peek at new homes for sale in my area on Realtor.com and I've even walked through a few of them. I have to fight the desire for more, bigger, newer. I have to shove the pride down and remind myself why this house is good enough. 

I spent some time on the floor searching my brain for more reasons to be thankful:

It's a small kitchen. Really small. Two of us is too many in there but it's big enough to cook and create in.

It has radiant floor heat so it dries quickly and isn't freezing to walk on in bare feet.

The brick tiles are dark so you really can't see the dirt. Same with the grout. 

But it's so hard to stand on. We've placed one of those thick anti-fatigue mats on it in front of the sink and it helps right there. I'm wondering if I can cover the floor with those....

And if you drop your favorite thingamabob? Might as well 

(or misewell, as I recently saw on Facebook. As in, "I misewell drop out of school..." Oh honey, please don't.) 

Might as well plan to buy a new thingamabob because it will break. 

I have big plans for this kitchen. I'd like to rip out the wall, ceiling, and floor and replace it all. But I know that may never happen and I'm learning to be okay with it. 

Because of all the changes that need to happen the biggest ones are inside my heart. 


And yes, actual picture of me scrubbing the floor.