I just use my Panasonic vacuum on hard wood floors. It has an option to stop the brushes but I found out that the brushes are good on the flat floors too. I really picks up everything on the bare floors. My Panasonic vacuum is the one that is sold commercially and is very powerful. I will pick up anything it seems. An it has a very quiet design. I would suggest you try yyour full size Kirby vacuum. Go and work out weigh training and built up your arm and legs and core areas, so you can lift the vacuum with one arm - maybe 40-50 lbs. and it will be simple for you. Plus, you will live longer and feel better too! 40 pounds is nothing for a lady who works out with weighs these days. I see them do 60 pound curls and she is weighs only 80 pounds. Just have to work at it! Maybe a month or two and you can do the 50 pounds. I known ladies that could only curl 8 pounds at the start and after two month were doing 55 pounds 10 reps and 3 sets. You could use your Kirby as a weigh at the completion of the weigh lifting for fun1 It will feel like a feather!

Yuck particleboard. You have my sympathy. We just went through the exact same thing. We took bids from several flooring co's and contractors. In our opinion, the best solution was the following, and that's what we did. The floor planks are just now being installed and look great: 1. Remove the particleboard using a skilsaw and crowbar. Also remove any felt/paper below it. This took 2 guys less than an hour per 100 square feet. 2. If your subfloor is less than 5/8" plywood, add an additional layer of 5/8" CD/X plywood. Lay it down in the opposite direction of the existing subfloor, glue and screw it, probably into the joists (ask someone about that). We used exterior fir plywood, not advantech or OSB or interior underlayment. This took 2 guys about 3 days to do 1000+ square feet. 3. Install the hardwood planks the standard way. Our contractor said no need for any vapor barrier, for us. I get the idea from experts that paper may have been more useful back when subfloor was 1x6 boards -- it would have given a smoother installation surface and also prevented dust from falling through the floor into whatever was below it. I personally hate particleboard so I advocate removing it. The time-consuming aspects of the overall job are installing the additional plywood and the floor planks -- removing the particleboard is comparatively not much work. If you leave it in, you will have to put at least 5/8" ply on top to conform to wood floor manufacturers' warranty requirements. And that will lower your ceiling height, which may be an issue if you're in a 1960s/70s era house. Plus, a particleboard sandwich on ply just doesn't seem very stable (or nutritious). I'm no expert but I trust my contractor and he has a pristine reputation. Hope this helps!

In the old days they scrubbed floors regularly with lye and other harsh cleaners. Daily cleaning involved strewing sand on them and sweeping it away. Many old houses had no subfloor. I certainly don't have any except where additional flooring was laid later. Although I have plastered ceilings in my first floor, many early homes had the planks of the second story floor visible from the rooms in the first floor. Going back to my comment above, if you can see ground through the cracks, you really should consider laying down some vapor barrier (on the surface of the soil). Unless you live in the desert, your building is taking up huge amounts of ground moisture and that will impact your comfort and the health of the house structure, in a big way. However, for floor finishes, there are a number of ways you can handle it without using poly, or stain. The simplest way is to clean them well (that's scrubbing on your hands and knees) followed by carefully drying them with rags. The next step is to remove any stains you want to shift (water, cat pee, etc.) This will raise the grain a bit, but it can be smoothed down by light hand sanding without impacting the established patina. Then you can seal the floors with a variety of things from tung oil to varnish to shellac. All of the above have pros and cons, but each is an historic finish. One of the advantages of doing this type of floor work is that it is relatively reversible (oil is less so, see below) and can be patched up in sections where necessary because of later wear, unlike poly finishes. Another advantage is that you may be able to avoid having the floors sanded, which will not only save you money, but preserve the thickness of the floor boards (they can only be machine sanded a few times before they must be replaced) and you will not lose the patina of old wood. You would be surprised how often people arrive here and report they are paying extra to install floors with artificially created patina. My personal choice is a pure tung oil finish followed by a coat of Butcher's wax. This is quite durable and easy to maintain. And if one of my cats has an accident the fluid stays on top for a bit and I can clean it up with no problems. (Cat pee, or any fluid, not cleaned up promptly will create a mark on almost any type of wood floor finish, including poly after it has had some use.) One thing to think about with tung oil finishes is that if you do choose that, you will have to sand the floors down before switching poly at some later date. This is somewhat true even for shellac and varnish which can get caught in cracks and interfere with the smooth flow and adherence of later poly coats. Keep in mind, too, that some "tung oil" finishes have only a small amount of tung oil and they are mostly polyurethane varnishes. I prefer pure tung oil. (You can read about it at the Real Milk Paint company website.) Some people who are allergic to nuts (peanuts, cashews, etc.) may also be allergic to tung oil which comes from a tropical tree. I'm not sure how much of an issue it is on floors, but it can be problematic to use it on kitchen counters, or at least I've seen reports of that being a concern. As for getting the smell of old cat pee out of unfinished wood: it's hard to do. The best product I've tried is something called Get Serious. It's for sale at PetSmart places and online. IMO it works better than the more commonly used Nature's Miracle. YMMV. One other caveat, I've seen reports that washing unfinished wood with Murphy's Oil Soap can lead to subsequent finish adhesion problems. I don't use it, so I'm not sure. However, FWIW, I once toured Montpelier in VA , the home of President James Madison, and I was lucky enough to be the only visitor that day so I got a behind the scenes tour of the restoration work in progress. And the highly skilled restorers were washing the floors with Murphy's. I live in a modest country-style Greek Revival farmhouse and I have great appreciation for simple, plain, buildings. Too often the grander houses are the ones that one sees or reads about. It warms my heart to hear about other plain houses getting the care they deserve as they tell a story of their own. You can't really go wrong trying to keep what you can of the old materials; repair rather than replace; and go slow so you don't wind up doing things that shouldn't have been done. If these 19th c buildings weren't solidly, if simply, built they wouldn't have survived into their third century. I try very hard to make sure that whatever I do is along the lines of careful maintenance of what I have, and when necessary, minimal changes at the same level of build-quality. I sure don't want future owners in 2108 shaking their heads at the penny-foolish and thoughtless "improvements" done under my care. Molly~

Believe it or not, we ALWAYS recommend using an ammonia-free Windex or similar product to clean hardwood flooring. The ammonia-free windex is strong enough to clean just about anything that's on your hardwood floor, and gentle enough to mist and wipe with a dry Swiffer daily. Because the product evaporates quickly, it reduces the risk of seeping into the seams of the wood planks. If and when an oil-based formula is used like a Murphy's oil or something similar, the hardwood develops a kind of "dependency" on the oil, and you'd have to continue to use the same product. Anything with harsh chemicals like ammonia or even vinegar, is advised against because it will dull and eventually damage the finish. General cleaning for a hardwood floor should consist of removing surface dirt with a vacuum and a hardwood flooring attachment that has a fuzzy end, and then a mist of ammonia-free windex, wiped up with something like a dry Swiffer. Here's a link about hardwood flooring general care and maintenance tips: Hardwood floor care and maintenance tips Also, check us out on our Facebook page here: Facebook/The Couture Floor Company