Homeowner Forum / Cleaning / August 2006

This is such good advice.  Too much mopping is not good for hardwood floors.
And if you use an additive to help the cleaning process, be sure not to make
it too strong.

Some people just mop with clear water, but I can't speak for that.

My cleaning lady uses something that is store-bought.  I'll have to find out
what it is.

Also with your hardwood floors really watch that you don't get water or
liquor spilled on the floors.  If your floors are not polyurethane, then you
might get spots in the similar way that you get spots on your furniture with
water drops or rings.

This is OT, but many of us oldsters probably remember when it was just the
thing to do (created by carpet sellers, no doubt) to cover the beautiful
hardwood floors with carpet.  Hardwood was seen as "old fashioned" and
touted as hard to keep clean.  :-)   Supposedly the carpet would be better,
but that carpet brought extra airborne chemicals into the house and was a
terrible catcher of dust, however often it was vacuumed.  And of course
there are the stains that can't be removed.  (And of course then you need to
buy more carpet.  What good consumers we are.)

And those old houses of the 40s and 50s had the real hardwood---thick and
really durable, not like the hardwood floors that I have in my "modern"
house.  Now durability is a problem in our modern world.   But Madison
Avenue wanted to sell us carpet, so we bought it, even though the hardwood
floors were perfectly good, and with a refinishing every thirty years, would
last a lifetime.

Then we went through a period when wood parquet was just "the thing" to have
in part of your house---used in combination with carpet, often in the
entryways.

And the kitchen and bathroom.........In the 50s and before we had linoleum,
which had to be waxed on your hands and needs with the old paste wax (and
then buffed)every few months.  And many women actually mopped every day in
the kitchen, but not with anything caustic so as not to wear off the wax.
(My mother used to say that her kitchen floor was clean enough to "eat off
of."   Then along came liquid wax, which was an improvement, since it didn't
need buffing.

Then vinyl flooring was developed but had to be waxed.   Then some angel
from Heaven developed a vinyl flooring that had a shine that (for a while at
least) did not have to be waxed.  Then the true non-wax vinyl was developed
which pretty much didn't need to be waxed.  By that time so many of us were
working outside the home, and that was terrific.  ***And you could really
get it clean.***

We even went through a period when indoor/outdoor carpet was used in the
kitchen.  However you vacuumed, you never got it really clean.

Now, when the "house makeover" people on television enter the target house,
they immediately turn up their noses at the vinyl floors.  It's just not
fashionable.  You must have tile, and it must not be the old-fashioned small
tile (1 foot square) that was just in fashion about three years ago-----it
must be the new 18-inch (or so) tile.

When we went to pick out new kitchen flooring, there weren't even more than
6 or 7 samples of vinyl in the store.

The kitchen tiling was touted as the be all and end all of kitchen and
bathroom flooring.   It would last forever, they said.   (But they do leave
extra tiles in case the original ones get broken :-)      It the tiling,
they said, would just be a snap to keep clean.  They absolutely did not
recommend sealant.

Now I see constant questions on television and in magazines saying that
their tile is grungy----how on earth on are they going to get it clean????
We've figured out that the grouting is porous, and maybe some tile is, too.
Surprise, surprise.

And so it goes.

Some comments:::::::   vinyl is less expensive than tiling----no wonder they
did the Madison-Avenue sale on tiling.  When it's all the rage in the
magazines and on the television, you can bet that America will pull up that
vinyl and put down the expensive tile  (or dirt floors, or whatever the
product of the moment is).

Now.....the thing about the carpeted bathrooms..........carpet is faster to
put down than vinyl (and much easier to take up when it gets dirty and you
have to change it) and probably less expensive than the really good quality
vinyl that homeowners were used to.  You can put down cheap carpet and it
will look great long enough for the buyers to make an offer.    No wonder
the homebuilders were pushing it.

And of course, we went through the shag carpet, plush carpet phases.   For a
while a couple of years ago shag carpet was making a comeback.   But those
of us old enough to remember shag had "been there -- done that" and knew
better than to buy it again.

The pendulum always swings-----  Sometimes there are true advancements, but
more and more these days the changes in home decor are "just somethin' to
sell," as my dad used to say.

But I do truly digress......

Warmest Regards,

Donna

i forgot to include the link...
http://www.ocedar.com/ultramax.asp