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Hardwood Floor Maintenance

Hardwood Floor Maintenance

Your hardwood floors are the most used part of your house or apartment. Think about the daily usage of your floors. Without even thinking about it, you and your family uses floors constantly every day. It would be foolish not to pay attention to hardwood floor maintenance in your home. When your floors begin to show wear and tear, you have three options to consider: REFINISH, REPAIR, or REPLACE.

Hardwood Floor Maintenance

Hardwood Floor Maintenance Usually Only Requires A REFINISH Project

Refinish, refinish, refinish. In almost every case it is preferable to refinish your floors rather than replace them.  MacWoods.com

A prestigious salon in the Orlando area set up business in a second floor unit in an old building. The place was a mess. It was filthy, paint was peeling from the walls, and the floors were drab and stained. But the owner noticed they were hardwood floors and the rooms had crown molding. He saw potential. After a few weeks of work the space was beautiful and the salon clients love the environment as much as the services!

Refinishing can be accomplished at various levels:

  • SIMPLE: clean & wax
  • MODERATE: clean, re-stain, and wax
  • COMPLEX: clean, strip, re-stain, and wax

Depending on the condition of the floors, any of these options will do the trick. Almost anybody can do the first one, your Dad can do the second one, and (with help from a home improvement store) Dad can probably do the third one as well.

Hardwood Floor Maintenance Options

BEFORE & AFTER

Hardwood Floor Maintenance Occasionally Requires REPAIRS To Be Made

In some cases the erosion and wear and tear may have caused serious damage to hardwood floors. In this case you may not be able to do it yourself, and it might even be over Dad’s head. The worst-case scenario is if the underlying floor is ruined. This would require a construction project to replace the sub-flooring or even the wooden beams. Fortunately, in most cases that won’t be the case.

Minors repairs can be done rather easily. Sometimes a board is loose or bulging and glue or nails could solve the problem. Often corners and edges can be fixed simply by replacing the baseboards.

 

Cleaning Your New Floors

Floor Maintenance Essentials in Florida

Certain climate issues affect Floor Maintenance in Florida. Humidity, moisture, heat, and sand are a few things that make it a challenge.

Floor Maintenance - cleaning

Floor Maintenance: CLEANING

It is very important to keep your floors clean. Regardless of the type of floor, keeping it clean ought to be a regular activity. The time invested is well worth the reward of beautiful floors.

VACUUMING

Modern technology has made it easy and fun to vacuum your floors. The iRobot is affordable and makes vacuuming nearly effortless.

(For more information go to: irobot.com)

CLEANERS

  • Liquid

(For more information go to: bona.com)

  • Dry or wet

(For more information go to: swiffer.com)

Floor Maintenance: REPAIRS

Oh no! We damaged our floors!

Think when you bought your first car. It was perfect. Shines bright in the sun. Looks great under the stars at night. Then you got your first ding. Or your first scratch from someone in the grocery store parking lot that didn’t care about letting their cart roll free. This can be agonizing. However, when it comes to your floors, you have two good options:

Contact your installer

There might be a way where they will fix or replace the floor section at no cost. Again depends on your warranty and your agreement. This is great for any floor type.

Do It Yourself

If you have hardwood floors, and it is a small nick you can pickup a Minwax marker and cover up a blemish. The Minwax® Wood Finish™ Stain Markers are ideal for that small scratch on floors or furniture.

Carpets

Bissell carpet cleaner makes cleaning up spills and stains relatively simple, either by hand or with a Bissell carpet cleaner. (For more information go to: bissell.com)

Floor Maintenance: USAGE

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of care.  – Benjamin Franklin

This is common sense. If you want to continue having beautiful and functional floors, you need to be thoughtful about what you allow to happen on them. Allowing the kids to roller blade on hardwood floors in the living room would not be wise. Moving furniture without smooth footing would also be a mistake.

These are choices the responsible home owner needs to make. If you regularly control the manner in which your flooring is used and faithfully maintain it, you likely will never have to think about repairing it. Then you can enjoy your beautiful flooring without stress or worry.

Protect Floors from Holiday

Holiday Floor Protection

In Tampa Florida there is not a lot of worries from salt, snow and dirt coming into your home this holiday season. However, we believe in a holiday floor protection strategy. The following article will help floors look and feel great during and after the holidays, especially if you live near the beach. Sand from the beach can be just as damaging as salt or snow. Some of the benefits of having a holiday floor protection plan:

Protect Floors from Holiday with a holiday floor protection plan

Protect floors from the holidays

We suggest doormats, furniture pads and shoe trays for the best protection of your floors this holiday season.

Doormats

The best way to keep dirt outside is with a festive doormat. Doormats greet your guests and protect your floors. Remember do not get too creative. Guests might think it is to festive for them to wipe their feet on. A simple but fun holiday greeting mat will suffice. Frontgate has some beautiful options. For the budget conscience check out Overstock for doormats.

Furniture Pads

Save your back, get furniture pads. Amazon has a plethora of offerings and fast shipping. Part of protecting your floors is thinking ahead to what your guests might do. Moving a couch that has padding instead of grinding it along your new wood floors can ruin the mood. Plan ahead and make a small investment for your floors.

Shoe Trays

As guests arrive you need to tell them where to place shoes. If you have a household rule stick to it and make it clear. The best way for this to be comfortable for everyone is to have an area with a shoe tray for your guests. We suggest a rubber shoe tray. This might not be large enough, so make certain to accommodate all of your guests. Be careful about purchasing a shoe tray with a drip grid unless you plan on keeping it outside.

Also, for the pets that just “magically” appear in addition to your guests… shoe trays can be great for containing dog and cat bowls and the spillage that will accompany them.

Benefits of holiday floor protection

Remember a simple, but often forgotten step. When preparing to entertain guests save cleaning the floors for last. Whether you have carpet, tile, wood or a combination, cleaning your floors first only to then have a spill before your guests arrive can be very frustrating. Save the stress and wait until the last minute to clean the floors.

If you follow these simple steps your holiday floor protection plan should be effective and seamless to your home, your guests and the festivities that bring us all together. Following these steps will help you keep floors looking new and clean for many holidays to come.

Give the gift of new floors!

Get a free quote for your new floors. This can be a perfect gift for the holidays and new year. Or call us: 813.540.5958