Hardwood floors instantly make every room look refined and sophisticated. They also raise the value of the home if you are trying to sell it. However, hardwood floors come with a lot of maintenance. The maintenance isn’t difficult to do, most people just fail to do the maintenance properly. Sometimes, within a few months, a nice hardwood floor can become unattractive and undesirable.
Avoid Scratching the Surface
Prevention is usually is better than the cure, especially when it comes to hardwood floors. Once there are scratches on a hardwood floor, it can be hard to fully restore a scratch. There are several ways to avoid scratches.
Keep the Dust Away
As a general rule of the thumb, we should keep our houses dust free. A dust free home not only keeps the home looking clean, it can prevent the surface of hardwood floors from scratching. Even though these dust particles are very small, they can form a thick layer on the surface of the floor. When this layer is walked on, the dust scrapes up against the floor. This will fade the shine and smoothness of your hardwood floor.
Use Place Mats
Most of the dirt and dust comes from outside. Place mats at the entrance of each entrance will keep a lot of grime at bay. Additionally, using welcome mats on hardwood floors offers a wonderful aesthetic to a room.
The No-Shoes Rule
Bringing outdoor shoes into the house can not only bring dirt inside; but also small rocks. These small rocks will for sure cause scratches and scuff on your hardwood floors. You can keep a simple yet strict no-shoes rule in the house. A shoe rack at the entrance of your home will feel more accommodating anyways.
Prepare the Furniture for the Hardwood Floor
Your furniture is one of the biggest enemies of hardwood floors. Since we can’t live without furniture, we can use rubber, cork, or cardboard on the parts of furniture that come into direct contact with the floor. In addition, we can prevent scratching by not dragging furniture on hardwood floors. We can also avoid scratching the surface by foregoing all kinds of rolling furniture with wheels underneath.
Pets
Pets love to scratch the floor with their claws, especially cats. You can avoid scratches by not allowing your animals to be in rooms that have hardwood floors, and by frequently clipping their nails.
Cleanliness
Other than all the above mentioned preventive measures, the cleanliness of the floor must be given the top most priority. It should be vacuumed and mopped daily to keep it shiny and dust free. Remember that water does not bode well with a hardwood floor. Instead, use cleaners or wet towels for cleaning purposes.
Buff Then Polish
It goes a long way when you properly take care of your hardwood floors. However, over time, hardwood floors lose their shine; it’s natural. So, in order to help the floor regain its shine, we need to get it buffed and polished. Here’s how it’s done.
Buffing is necessary before polishing as it ensures that the polish applied stays there for a long time. It is also done to remove any scratches or dents before polishing. It is done using a Buffer.
Once the floor is properly and thoroughly buffed, it is polished using wax. The polish makes hardwood floors appear good-as-new. It begins to sparkle again and regains its lost shine.
While we can take care of the cleaning and prevention part, buffing and polishing should only be done by the professionals.
