I get tons of questions on how I clean hardwood floors. With horror stories of warping, staining, and just all around ruining of hardwood flooring, it’s no surprise. However, cleaning your hardwood floors isn’t as difficult as people make it sound. Intimidating at first, sure. But once you know how to clean hardwood floors you’ll be set and ready to go. There are also cleaners that you can make at home to keep your floor nice and clean and shiny!
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Basic tips to clean hardwood floors
You should routinely sweep and dust your hardwood floor. You can use a dry mop with a dusting agent or you can pick up a floor duster from any grocery store. Dusting your floor picks up any dirt, dust, and pet hair that may scratch the finish when you try to clean it. You can use a vacuum with a floor brush attachment or if your vacuum has the option to turn off the spinning brush you can just use that. The brush may scratch up your floor so you definitely want to be cautious with that! My Dyson does a great job on ours, but you need to be aware of how your model handles hardwood floors.
How to deep clean hardwood floors
After a while dust, oils, and grime can build up on the floor. A simple dusting won’t normally handle this so it’s time to get cleaning. A regular mop with a hardwood cleaning agent from your grocery store will work fine if you follow directions. Be sure to wring out as much water as you can from the mop to avoid standing water. I like to use a Spin Mop, because it is the best thing I’ve found to help keep the mop from being too wet. Standing water can damage your flooring!
A great homemade cleaner for hardwood floors is easy to make. There are so many on the internet that a quick search can bring you probably dozens of different recipes. I’ll share my favorite one with you, one that I use every time I clean my floor:
- 1 Cup of Vinegar
- 3 Cups of Water
- 10 Drops of Tea Tree Oil
- 10 Drops of Lemon Essential Oil
This makes a decent amount of cleaner, I can usually clean up the kitchen with this amount. If you need more, just inflate the ingredients accordingly and keep the same ratio. It’s easy to use, just mop like usual, making sure to avoid any standing water.
Now you’re ready for just about every mess that can happen on your hardwood floor! Having new hardwood flooring shouldn’t be stressful and you shouldn’t be scared by what people say about cleaning it! As long as you keep it dusted, swept, and mopped regularly and avoid standing water your floor will look great for years! Do you have any questions about how to clean your hardwood floor? Is there a special homemade cleaner that you’d like to include? Feel free to add them down in the comments!
Shannon Precourt says
Thanks for this solution! I know, as you said, I can search Pinterest for DIY hardwood floor cleaners, but knowing this one is your tried & true, favorite, let’s me know it will work great the first time & I can avoid trying 20 different solutions!
Thanks again!
Shannon
Gina Luker says
Thanks so much Shannon, I really appreciate your confidence in me 🙂
Jackie Burns says
We had the owner of our local flooring store come out to repair a nick in our wood floor. I got into a conversation with him about floor cleaners. He highly recommends using Windex as it has alcohol in it which helps evaporate the liquid. He sells a variety of wood floor cleaners in his store, but even his wife uses Windex. I have been doing this for years and haven’t had any problems. We have a dark wood floor, and no streaks either.
Gina Luker says
Thanks for the tip Jackie, I have heard that as well and will give it a try 🙂
Junice Lanza says
I’m so glad I’ve read this. 6 months ago I just moved into my new renovated apartment. And when the renovated it the put new floors down so now its the hardwood floor. Now I could use the homemade recipe for my floor.
Gina Luker says
I am so happy it will be helpful Ronel, good luck with the new place 🙂