I LOVE being outdoors.
I HATE the outdoors coming indoors on people’s shoes.
We have a HUGE tent — a three-armed monstrosity absolutely required for the burgeoning horde we call “our family” — that has a “vestibule” separated from the inner sanctum where we sleep by a zippered wall. We use that as a changing room and the place where you sit with your legs poking out the door while you take off your shoes before coming the rest of the way inside in your stocking feet.
I’d love a house out in a more rural area, but a mud room with a concrete floor and a floor drain would be an absolute MUST.
NOT to say that I hate getting dirty, just that when I’m DONE being dirty, I prefer to leave most — if not all — of the dirt outside, where it belongs.
MUD does not comply. Not at all.
I don’t like mud (dirt, grass, bugs) coming in the house, either. It’s a constant struggle. Yes, I want the children to go out in the woods and get filthy. No, I don’t want an extra two loads of laundry, on top of the 3-5 I’m already doing, plus all the rest of the cleaning.
If only they could just undress outside!
“...a mud room with a concrete floor and a floor drain would be an absolute MUST.” When we were planning our retirement home, I expressed the wish for a stainless steel kitchen with a steam cleaner and a drain in the floor. My husband responded, “I’d feel like I’m living in a sink!” He recently suggested installing a drain in the kitchen floor heheheheh....