Month: December 2020

Floors in contemporary homes have come a long way. Wood and carpet are no longer the only options. Homeowners can choose from Ceramic tile floors, wood, vinyl, marble, linoleum and other beautiful choices. If you enjoy showing off your beautiful home, and floors, here are a few tips to make cleaning and condition easy.

HARDWOOD

Your beautiful hardwood floor might have a sealer on it like lacquer, varnish or shellac. If this is the case you will need to care for your floors with solvent-based cleaners and polishes. But if your floor is treated with polyurethane, you have a few more options for cleaning and shining your floor.

Hardwood floors can be cleaned with this really easy method. Two teabags steeped in a pot of boiling water. After a few minutes put the tea in something convenient to work with, like a bucket, and using a soft cloth soaked in the tea and then wrung out until it is only damp, wash the floor. The tannic acid in the tea will leave your wood floor with a beautiful shine.

To repair cracks in hardwood floors, borrow one of your child’s crayons, the color of the floor, and rub it into the gap, filling in the crack. Heat the repaired crack with your blow dryer and then buff the area with a soft cloth.

If you’d rather not use such homegrown methods, try cleaning your floors with a liquid floor cleaner for wood floors. Open a window or other source of ventilation since these stronger chemicals can combust. With a dry wax applicator, soak a small area and then wipe clean. When your floor is dry, buff it with a floor polisher.

FLAGSTONE

Natural stone floors give look contemporary and sophisticated. Cleaning these floors is a little more work than wood, but you will love the results.

Keep them looking their finest with a commercial sealer instead of varnish or lacquer. Dirt can be cleaned from your floor with a mixture of one-quarter cup of low-sudsing cleaner mixed with one-half gallon cold water and one cup ammonia.

Wearing work gloves and with an open window for ventilation, apply the mixture using a sponge mop. When ready to rinse the floor, use clear, cold water and buff dry with a soft rag.

Upkeep is an easier process using a damp mop with fabric softener in water and applied evenly with a mop. Fix a dull film appearance with a cup of white vinegar in water. Then sit back and admire your beautiful floors.

If you found a used coffee table or piece of furniture you love, but you’re not infatuated with the patchwork of cigarette burns, there may still be hope for repair and revival. The same procedures that can save a tortured designer furnishing may also save your vinyl floor that suffered from the burning exuberance of your last celebratory party.

Wood is wonderful. It’s durable and sandable – and sanding is your saving grace. If you have a cigarette burn in wood that you’re trying to conquer, you’ll need paint and varnish remover, sandpaper (or steel wool, depending on the wood), finishing paint or stain, and varnish. The hardest part will be matching colors. (If you were considering restaining or repainting your furniture – now is the time.)

Carefully remove the paint over the cigarette burn with paint and varnish remover. Let it sit a little while to let the chemicals do their work. After the paint is removed and cleaned up, sand down the area so the cigarette burn hole is less noticeable. Then, paint or stain your matching (or new) color, and varnish the area to protect it.

If the cigarette burn is on Formica, fiberglass or vinyl, use powder cleanser like Comet or Ajax (scouring powder) to remove the discoloring. After cleaning the cleanser, simply use an automotive polishing compound to get back the original shine. In a worst-case scenario, you might just have to patch an area with a new piece, or a piece stolen from an inconspicuous area of the same material. (You can probably get away with removing vinyl tiling in a closet or a snippet of Formica or fiberglass from under a tabletop or under a seat of a chair.)

It takes some work to get rid of those nasty burns, but you don’t have to pass up an intriguing piece of furniture, and you don’t need to re-tile your kitchen floor every time you have a party. Enjoy life, and enjoy a home without having to look at cigarette burns.