5 Things You Shouldn’t Use on Hardwood Floors
- Vinegar – Because it will strip the finish off. So, unless you’re looking for a splotchy, kind of gross look on your hardwood… just don’t.
- Bleach – Seriously. There’s a level of “it will eat through your flooring and you’ll be left with nothing” with bleach. Not only will it damage the finish, but it will also discolor the wood underneath. So, even if you fix the finish–bad. Very bad.
- “Magical Mystical” Erasers (AKA Sand Paper) – Did you realize that those “magical” eraser things are really just super-fine-grit sand paper? Yeah. So, if you use that on your floor, you’re actually chipping away at the finish very minutely. BUT STILL. That finish gets enough heat without you running around sanding it in spots. If you need to clean it–well, we’ll talk about that, but Bona is the answer here.
- Scrubby Brushes – Yeah, you might as well use razor blades for scratching off the finish. Don’t be tempted–there’s a better way to deep clean…again, Bona, my friends. Bona.
- Plastic Dolphins – This is the reason for this post. You people have to stop using plastic dolphins on your hardwood floors. Not only does the dolphin not like it, but the floor doesn’t either. Heh. In all seriousness, though, kids’ toys are some of the roughest items that get put on hardwood. So, in areas of high-toy-usage, I am always sure to put down a rug with a rubber backer so the toys stay off the wood (those little metal cars, doll-shoes and wheels–they all make me cringe!)
One Thing You Should Use on Hardwood Floors
Really, the only thing you should be using on hardwood is a cleaner formulated to be both gentle on the wood itself, but clean away the dust, grime and icky stuff that gets tracked-in on your floors. I’m talking about both in daily-cleaning (like when I spot-cleaned that little “oopsie” the dog made earlier, or the spilled juice from my toddler at snack time, or the mud my son tracked-in last night, yeah, all that), AND deep cleaning (like when my mother-in-law is on the way over and I don’t want her to think I’ve been abusing the kids by letting them live among the not-shiny floors).
So, yeah, Bona PowerPlus (Bona’s most powerful cleaner yet, now available at Lowe’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, ACE Hardware and True Value), well, I use it for pretty much all my hardwood floor cleaning in addition to Bona’s standard hardwood floor cleaner (which means I use it everyday I clean AND on special occasions). There’s a soft microfiber scrubby head for deep cleaning and then there’s a head with a little more grit to it that works really well for tough clean-ups (like when the toddler colored on the floor with crayons).
