House Tour, or, The Deep Clean

For years I have been meaning to take photos of our house here in Kansas City. The only ones I have are shots of the empty rooms right before we moved in (and before we had children). I am always planning to get out my camera in those rare moments when the children aren’t around, but something always stops me. I am waiting, I suppose, for the Perfect Moment when all the rooms are a.) clean, b.) toy-free, and c.) “finished,” i.e. “decorated.” Considering my life right now (and my lovely children) this “Perfect Moment” will never, ever, arrive.

Obviously.

But still, I should really take pictures of my house. Because I love my house. And though it is rarely perfectly clean and never perfectly neat, it has become, even in the few short years we have lived here, a home: a place of rest, good fellowship, and joy. It is filled with good food, good memories, beautiful and meaningful things, and—most importantly—beautiful people (two of whom possess more tiny plastic toys than I would have thought possible considering that their mother doesn’t “believe” in plastic toys. But I digress).

Anyway, this Autumn I decided to supply this lack of photos even as I undertake another major household task: the Deep Clean.

For though I have a (fairly) successful rhythm that keeps the house “reasonably” clean, I have noticed that  dust gathers in certain unused corners, that there is grime on the baseboards, that vast and untold riches lurk beneath the playroom sofa…

So now that Hattie goes to “school” a couple of mornings a week I hope to undertake a thorough room by room purge and clean. Then, once the room is “done,” I will take a picture—quickly, before anyone builds a playmobile town under the table or grinds cracker into the rug.

So stay tuned for the first installment of my Deep Clean House Tour, scheduled for tomorrow!