If you’ve recently installed hardwood floors in your house, you are no doubt enthralled with the beauty and style they’ve brought to your home’s interior. That’s good, because you should be! However, it’s important to remember that while your hardwood floors look perfect and dazzling right now, they won’t stay that way forever without proper maintenance and care. To help ensure that your hardwood floors always look their best, here are some quick and easy maintenance tips.
Get Humidity under Control
Humidity can be hardwood’s worst enemy if not kept in check. When the air in your home is too humid, your hardwood floors are at risk of becoming warped and damaged. You should strive to keep your home’s relative humidity between 40 and 50% to avoid damage. During the more humid summer months, it’s always a good idea to use a dehumidifier to reduce humidity, and during winter, a humidifier can be very useful; while too much moisture in the air is bad for your hardwood, too little can be damaging as well.
Ditch the Mop
Using a wet mop to clean hardwood floors never ends well. Excess water can easily cause damage to the finish, potentially costing you more money when you need to refinish your floors. Also, using any kind of oil soap product is not recommended seeing as they often leave behind a sticky residue that can be difficult to remove and can attract more dirt. The good news is that Milton Hardwood Floors carries a biodegradable cleaning solution that is an excellent alternative to mopping and oily soaps when it comes time to clean your floors.
Use Felt Protectors on Furniture
The legs of pieces of furniture such as chairs and sofas can easily damage your hardwood floor by creating pesky scratches and marks. The best way to prevent this from happening is to use felt protectors. Felt protectors are applied to chair and sofa legs and will protect your hardwood floor from scratches and dings.
Trim your Dog’s Nails Regularly
If you have a dog, it’s a good idea to make sure their nails are regularly trimmed; doing this will help prevent them from scratching your hardwood floor when running around the house. If your dog’s nails make a clacking sound as they walk across the floor, you will know it’s time for a trim. If you can’t get around to trimming, placing carpets over areas of hardwood floor that see a lot of dog traffic is a great temporary solution.
Go Shoeless
Wearing your shoes in the house is a sure fire way to scratch your hardwood floors. When you wear shoes indoors, you can easily drag in all kinds of dirt, sand, or even small pebbles that will dig into your hardwood floors. Make sure that you and any family or guests take their shoes off before walking on hardwood.
Follow these helpful tips and your hardwood floors are sure to be sparkling and beautiful for years to come!
