My new best friend

I've been wanting a steam cleaner for a while now, but Selena's post on her Hill Family of 4 blog convinced me to break down and order one. In case you're wondering, steam cleaners allow you to clean & sanitize without the use of chemicals and can be used for 1001 different things. Let me tell you, I'm impressed!!! It arrived last night as we were walking out the door to swim lessons so I didn't really get to play with it much. I did use it on our shower before bed and was completely disgusted. I'd scrubbed the shower per my usual routine yesterday morning, and last night with minimal work with the steamer dirt & grime just dripped everywhere. Ick!

Needless to say I was steaming first thing this morning. My victim today: the kitchen floor. The grout in our kitchen has been black since we moved in 4 years ago. Several times over the years I've spent hours on my hands & knees with a grout brush & grout cleaner trying to revive it with no luck at all. As soon as the steam hit the grout this morning dirt starting pouring out of the grout lines. Again, ICK!!! The process is a little time consuming, but it's definitely not hard & it requires very little elbow grease. I've managed to clean most of the grout in our kitchen before lunch today, including taking several breaks to play with the kids, make snacks & refill the steamer. Here's photo proof:



See the difference in the color of the grout in the back of the photo?!?! Obviously that's the section I haven't cleaned yet. Yeah, gross. It's making me regret that we ever allowed the 5-second rule w/ all that dirt, food and other disgustingness ground into the grout.

So there you have it. I'm now madly in love with my steam cleaner, and replacing the kitchen floor is not quite as high on the priority list anymore!