How to clean hardwood floors with area rugs
socks
6 years ago
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How to clean hardwood floors
Comments (16)I'm a little confused with the comment: "Murphy Oil soap will ruin your floor. You will never be able to refinish the floor." Maybe you meant if you use Murphy's, you will have to get it totally refinished and not just coated? I didn't think there was too much that made the wood incapable of being refinished. Can anyone clarify because I think Murphy's was used on mine a while ago? Thanks Using Murphy's is not going to ruin your floors. It will not make them incapable of being rescreened, refinished, hand sanded and recoated, etc., etc. The only thing I've ever found to "ruin" hardwood is pet urine that has soaked through rugs (and just sat there) and water (liquid) that had been allowed to sit for extended periods of time (weeks, months, etc.) The pet urine will stain the floors a blackish color making it difficult (nearly impossible) to sand out, the water will warp the flooring. If you use water (water mixed with anything) to clean your floors, wring out your rags as much as possible and use another dry cloth to immediately wipe away any leftover water on the floor....See MoreFloor frustrations-how to clean up these old hardwoods?
Comments (6)Thanks for your suggestions on chemicals and warnings against drum sanding. I went shopping Monday morning for chemicals, and in the meantime Mr. Weedy made faster passes on the floor with the sander to avoid heating up and globbing the shellac or whatever was on the floor. Results: Denatured alcohol did nothing. I tried wiping with a rag, scrubbing with steel wool, flooding a small area and letting it sit, all with no results. Guess it's not shellac. I then tried lacquer thinner. Scrubbing with a rag seemed to have an effect, so I did a fairly large area. Once it dried, however, there was minimal results, and less so on the unsanded wood than sanded. I tried it in one of the bedrooms that had a single sanding pass, and quit once I started feeling a little stomach cramping. :-) Yes, I had the windows open and a fan going. Sanding that didn't seem any different from the area I didn't apply the lacquer thinner. Didn't try the mineral spirits yet. In the meantime Mr. Weedy had sanded one of the bedrooms about 18 times with 60 grit (seemed to create more dust than 20 grit), and made headway. I took an orbital sander with 40 grit to the spots left behind (slightly deeper grooves/dents) and here's where we're at: Bottom left corner is where I hand sanded. Lowe's had no oxalic acid, but we've got some in our garage 100 miles away, so we'll work on the kitchen again later. Also, in the meantime, we used a belt sander on the mosaic inlay portions to get off the lippage, machine sanded over it to even out the belt sander marks, and then chipped away with a hand sander to get the residual off. This shows what our eventual goal is, but it'll be dozens of hours if we have to hand sand off this finish. I've done some more googling and may try citrus strip or Formby's furniture restorer to remove the finish. We've also got this area that had tile over it. The thinset seems to have bleached out the wood where it touched, but even aggressive hand sanding is having a tough time evening out all the discoloration. I'm still very open to additional suggestions to attack this. And I must say that I now know the answer to the question, "why would anyone cover up hardwood floors?" Anyone who asks has never personally refinished them. :-)...See Moreblack hardwood floors...how can i keep them clean?
Comments (7)Palinpset-Well, even barefoot it is bad. :( In fact, I think the oils on our feet smudge it worse than shoes. I like the idea of socks others mentioned, but of course it is just not practical all the time. carol-I have considered that it may be the cleaner, so I will try your suggestion. Thanks. nancy-I will also try your product, the Bona X. I have Bella Wood cleaner that the dude from Lumber Liquidators suggested to me. Not sure if that could be the problem, or if it just doesn't clean that well? I will try Bona X! nanny-glad to know I am not alone in this! Thing is, the hair doesn't bother me as much as those darn smudges!!!...See MoreHow do you clean your hardwood kitchen floors? (X-posted on cleaning)
Comments (14)rebeccamomof123 your floors are lovely. If you like the way your floors look, I wouldn't have them refinished now. You know now that when the time comes you'll have to completely refinish them, but there's no reason you have to rush into it since they obviously are in good shape. I'd stop using the steam mop and Murphy's and start using the damp microfiber mop. We had oak floors refinished in our last house and I used Bona and the occasional steam mop. After 6 years, the satin poly was starting to wear thin in a few spots. Our new hardwood floors are waiting to be installed right now and I don't plan to ever use the steam mop on them!...See MoreAnnie Deighnaugh
6 years agosocks
6 years agosocks
6 years agoMichael
6 years agocat_ky
6 years ago
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