HOW TO KEEP YOUR WOOD HARD
I don’t even have wood in my apartment myself but you might. That’s why you’re reading this right? Right? I grew up with hardwood floors as a kid in a 3 bedroom house and we had a lot of dogs. Well we really had 4 in total and then 1 had a litter of 8 and well just imagine potty training 8 puppies on hardwood floors with 2 school age boys and 2 working parents-nearly impossible. Whatever your situation is- dogs, kids… maybe your dogs had kids like mine did, whatever it may be wood is hard to maintain. They stain, they wither, they crack, they splinter, they get dull. So how do you keep it looking like the day you bought it. HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR WOOD HARD? and shiny.
1) You have to keep it clean. 2) You have to keep it dry 3) You have to polish it.
Maybe you didn’t personally have the wood installed yourself. I said that because you first have figure out if you do in fact have wood. Or do you have say Luxury Vinyl which is 100% not wood it 100% synthetic. Or maybe you have Laminate wood which uses a fiberboard core and is constructed of wood byproducts. For the millennials lets just say the wood identifies as wood and we call it wood but if you look under the surface you’ll see its a mix. Which is fine. Then we have the straight wood. 100% all natural wood. Okay, well is it finished or unfinished? These are the questions. Once you figure this out then come back to step one which is you have to keep it clean.
Luxury Vinyl is 100% synthetic but it’s the only one of three that is also 100% waterproof. Good for potty training puppies not for bare feet in the middle of the winter here in Boston. Do this:
-2 cups of warm water
-1/4 cup of white vinegar
-1/8 cup of rubbing alcohol
-1/8 tsp of dish soap
-5 to 10 drops of essential oils
Laminate is a pile of different layers all stuck together with photo of something on top. There’s layers to this. It behaves like wood because of the wood byproduct so it really doesn’t like moisture unlike the Vinyl, but the top layer gets really streaky if you clean it with the wrong thing just like Vinyl. It’s kind of like a double agent. And if you use the wrong product it can expand and contract and do that weird behavior that wood does but it’s pretty durable and way less expensive than actual wood. No soapy detergent ever. Do this:
-2 cups of warm water
-1/4 cup of white vinegar
-1/2 cup of rubbing alcohol
-1/8 tsp of dish soap
-5 to 10 drops of essential oils
And the star of the show. The one and only. The first but certainly not last. Hardwood. Unless you live in New York city, never left and have only seen trees in movies you know wood when you see it. Wood does not like moisture. It likes to be dry and clean. So you never mop wood. You only sweep and dry mop. It’s when you spray the wood with a bottle and then use a wood wiper to clean it. Do this:
-2 cups of warm water
-1/4 cup of white vinegar
-1/8 tsp of dish soap
-5 to 10 drops of essential oil
No rubbing alcohol.
When you spill something clean it up immediately. Don’t pour a bucket of water on your floor or soak a mop and splatter the water all over the floor and then clean it that’s how you ruin your wood. Remember it doesn’t love moisture it’ll wither away. I’m exhausted go to Home Depot and talk to someone there they’ll direct you to the wood polish based on the type of flooring you have.
