I mostly clean my hardwood floors by vacuuming. To pick up spills, I moisten a microfiber cloth with water and wipe it up.

I never heard of thieves essential oil. It turns out it is a mixture of various oils, including clove, lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus, etc. It must smell good.

Beyond that, I don't understand what people are hoping it will do. The oils are not going to help with removing dirt and spills. Supposedly they serve some sort of anti-bacterial/ anti-virus purpose. Even if they work - and you don't know how effective they are - what's the point? It's going to dry and then you resume walking on the floor. It's not like you are licking the floor and it needs to be sterile.

One thing I read re: thieves oil is that you need an emulsifier to allow the oils and water to mix. It may be that the additional ingredient that turns the water/oil mix into an emulsion (ie., a detergent) is what is doing the cleaning.

Bona makes some easy to use flooring cleaning kits. They have a swiffer type mop as well. I would NOT recommend putting all those oils and untested products on your wood floors.

Oil of any variety makes unfinishable glop out of wood finishes. If you want to ruin your floor, use Pine Sol on it, or Murphy's, or Orange Glop, or anything oil based.

Thank you, Guys -- I ordered the microfiber mop and Bruce Armstrong Cleanser on Amazon -

The best hardwood floor cleaner ever produced can also be purchased on Amazon or direct. Polycare. Comes in premixed or concentrate

Ive had someone sell me on the Thieves oil and now my wood floors look like S***! Does anyone know how to remove it short of putting in new floors in so they look like they did last year when i installed them. Thanks

Oh Geeze! I have had wood floors for a few months now, and still don't know how to properly clean them.

Salesman at wood flooring store said he advises Bona Floor cleaner.

Bona floor cleaning products are great and available everywhere. Use them. Dont use things nobody has ever heard of.

HU-983922844...first things first, you need to know what you've done to your floors to figure out how to deal with them. You have put down layer upon layer of oil. Even a small amount of oil will create issues over the long haul. Oil-based soaps (like Murphy's Oil Soap or any 'eco-friendly' product on the market) will "sound" great, but they are horrible for wood finishes. Notice how I said wood FINISHES.

Murphy's Oil Soap, et al, are Ok with RAW wood. Like 500 year old wooden pews in 1000 year old churches. That's fine. But a FINISHED modern wood product does NOT allow for these things.

OK...so now what? Windex. Yep. Windex is a very mild DEGREASER! If you've ever worked in a commercial kitchen, you will know that degreasers are used to clean the kitchen floors. Why? Because soooooo much oil hits the floor on a daily basis that it becomes a skating rink by the end of the night.

Find a bottle of original Windex and some good, clean, cotton rags. Walmart sells them by the bag. Now go ahead and sit down (get comfy...this could take a LONG while) on your floor. Choose a spot that is not visible to the rest of the home...I like the areas behind a door....some people like closets. It doesn't matter.

Now go ahead and spray a 1ft x 1ft area with the windex. Let it sit for 30 seconds or so...and then wipe it off with a cloth. Excellent. Now do it again. If this is working, you will find some yellowish looking gunk on your cloth AND you should be able to feel the spot is clean....OR (if you used WAY TOO MUCH OIL) it will feel a bit sticky and gunky. If it feels gunky, you should be able to scrape it with your finger nail until you 'see' the original finish underneath.

Either way, you know you are on the right track. If you can get a single spot clean, then you know you can get EVERYTHING clean. There are many people who have done this hands and knees style (took them about a week). And there are others who went ahead and rented a buffing machine to clean the floors a little faster. Either way, you need to DEGREASE your floors. Windex is the simplest way to go about it.

I'm a little confused by the described dangers of using oil-based cleaners. I thought the finishes used on hardwoods are primarily oil themselves (linseed, tung, etc) or is it the wax they might be mixed with that is prone to breaking down? Is the idea of "polishing" or "nourishing" wood with mixtures containing grapeseed or olive oil nonsense?

Oils get sticky as they grab more and more dust over the years. That breaks down the finish. And it contaminated the wood underneath which stops wood from accepting more finish in 20+ years from now = need more wood = complete waste of time and money!

Moisturizing wood only happens when you have 400 year old church pews or 800 year old oak doors leftover from the Crusades. Nope. Not kidding. Europe has a lot of those left. So too the Levante.

ah thanks, so periodically applying more wax is a better way of protecting the finish on say, 100 year old wood that is looking dry/has lost some lustre and is showing grease from fingers etc?

It depends on what is ON the floor. If you have WAXED hardwood floors then MORE WAX is needed. Anything else and you need a something else. Most finishes from the last 40+ years are polyurethane finishes. These are NOT to receive ANYTHING other than 'cleaning'. If the floor is showing raw wood then it is time to do a full sand and refinish.

Never, ever put down wax or polish or oil on a polyurethaned floor. EVER. At this point, we don't know what you have on your floors. You will need to load a photo or two.

Can you load photos? They need to be in jpg format and it takes ++time for them to load. You need to leave the page alone until your photos have finished loading (can be 5-10 minutes).

This info is very helpful! I'm not home right now but I've been told that the floors and built-ins were only ever given periodic coats of carnauba wax over their lifetime. Still, the floors are much glossier than the walls and cabinets. I'll post some photos in a bit

These are examples of the doors and shelves with more of a satin finish that I presume were waxed for many years but have gone without for awhile. As you can see they could use some cleaning but probably also a new coat of carnauba

The floors are much shinier (could be a poly coat?)

Wow! Lovely! The floors can have more wax because they are WAXED floors. Keep going with the carnuba wax.

I would love to see the edges get more love but that's Not A refresh. It's a full restoration...with the cost of a historic restoration.

What country do you live in?

I’m in California! Could it be that it’s all been waxed but the floors have just received many more coats? What kind of cleaner would be appropriate for the kind of hand grease you can see on the door— a small amount of windex once in awhile? My hands are unfortunately tied w restoration as it’s protected by a conservancy w a hands-off approach but I want to maintain the wood as best I can.

A little soap on a damp cloth should do it. Adding more wax is going to get rid of that. The oil is being soaked up by the wood = looks shinier. A bit of wax and you should be good.

The way to test of presence of wax = water drop test. You can place a drop of water (or two) on the wood surface (as best as you can...vertical surfaces are harder) and let it sit for a minute or two. If you see a WHITE 'ring' then you know you have wax. It is the easiest way to tell what is currently on it.