Caring for wood floors to ensure your home stays looking immaculate!
So you’ve had your beautiful new floor installed and it looks immaculate. However, wood is a natural product and it’s inevitable that you will have marks and signs of wear soon after having it installed. Although these marks add to the natural beauty of the product and over time and will add character to the wood markings, there are some things you will need to do to ensure that you don’t cause any major damage to your new floor. That’s why caring for wood floor should be something that you have in mind on a daily basis.
Use a doormat
Once you’ve had your floor installed, invest in some mats by each doorway. This will prevent visitors from treading stones and grit into the house and marking the floor unnecessarily. You could also bring in moisture on a wet day and this could make your floor slippery. When you buy mats make sure that you use a rubber backed or similarly dense material which could end up causing more damage by trapping moisture between the mat and the floor. You should also protect your floor from getting wet by using a wet mop or cloth to clean your floor.
Keep it dry
Make sure anything you use on the wood does not leave moisture behind. If you spill drinks make sure that you clean it up immediately. The best thing to use to clean your floor is either a damp cloth or a dry cloth with a spray. We also have a few people who have come into our shop who’s floor has been damaged because they have a cleaner who doesn’t know how to properly clean real wood, using bleach or detergent with a wet mop. Therefore if you aren’t cleaning the floor yourself, make sure they know how to clean the floor properly. Wood floors shouldn’t actually need detergent – there are many products out there which remove dirt and bacteria which don’t use detergents including ‘Eco Cloth’.
Don’t move furniture
One of the other complaints we get is that a floor has been damaged by furniture or a large item being moved which has caused a deep scratch. To avoid this, never ever drag furniture around. Put felt pads on the feet of sofas, tables and any other furniture. Don’t walk on the floor with stilettos and check that your vacuum cleaner (if on wheels) hasn’t got any sharp edges. If you have babies and toddlers that are just learning to walk, you could find that they are pushing furniture or small items to enable them to walk so make sure you give them plastic walkers instead. In addition, don’t use tile or vinyl cleaning products as they can contain harmful chemicals.
Don’t use abrasives
If you have a spill or mark, don’t ever use wire wool, scourers or anything abrasive as this will cause damage that may be difficult to rectify.
Use rugs
There will be areas of your floor that will get heavy wear, this includes the area next to the kitchen sink, and also the area just in front of chairs and sofas. Put rugs down here to avoid any heavy wear. If you have direct sunlight shining on one part of your wooden floor, over many years it can cause some discolouration. This is more common in hot, sunny countries but here in Scotland (unfortunately) we don’t get long periods of sunlight over the course of a year. However, if it’s something you’re worried about then you could put up blinds.
Beware of pets
Finally, pets can cause scratches so make sure you trim their nails to avoid any deep scratches.
When it comes to caring for wood floors, follow these simple steps and your hardwood floors will stay beautiful for many, many years
To get a quote on any real wood flooring species, whether its carpet, laminate, vinyl, solid hardwood or engineered wood, contact us today.