My house was built over eleven years ago. Since then, its skeleton and principal parts needed no maintenance. I admire the modern residential construction technologies. On designing my house, I asked the designer to add open-air versatile spaces for such as parties, flower or plant displays, maintenance work for ski, fishing, mountaineering, and rain gear, plus a play space for the dog. The designer chose stone as the material for the floor. It's really nice and comfortable. This space is called loggia, which seems to be often found in Italy.
My wife was staring at the loggia today and abruptly shouted out, "The stone panels are dirty and its shade is fairly different from what it used to be." I didn't notice it, but it's not unnatural that greasy dirt or dust in the raindrops built up on the stone floor for more than eleven years. Many barbecue parties were held here.
It was hard work to polish all the stone panels under the blazing sun. Naturally, I didn't want to do it, but gave it a try. Putting shorts and sandals on and watering the stone, I polished the stones strongly in vain. I brought a dishwashing detergent from the kitchen and scattered it. It was slightly effective, but I was not satisfied. I used a dishwasher powder next! It was great. Look at the first pictures below. You'll find the difference of shades between a polished line of stones and others. I regrettably ended up having to polish stones on my next day off.
(Vocabulary)
skeleton （建物などの）骨組み（framework）
stare 〈人が〉（驚き・恐れで）〔…を〕（目を大きく開いて）じっと見つめる, じろじろ見る, にらむ〔at, in, into, upon〕
loggia イタリアで生まれた建築意匠の一種を指す言葉で、ファサードに一方の側が外に開かれた廊下を配し、一定間隔の柱で支持するか、単に壁に開口部を設けた形状のものである。開廊、涼み廊下とも。(Wikiより引用)
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