Your Weekly Wood Dusting Routine, Pt 2

Last week, we looked into tools that help us dust our gorgeous, hardwood floors. This week, we’ll look at a few simple techniques that can help us sustain the natural lustre of those floors.

These methods don’t have to be a burden or tedious. They’re easy tips to remember and implement them into our routines. When they’re done well, they can make the dusting of our wood floors simple and efficient.

*pull the dirt, don’t push: when using brooms to clean the floors, pull the dirt. Don’t push it around. The downside of using a broom is often, we tend to push around the debris we’re trying to sweep up. We don’t have a good handle on how to appropriately sweep.

*clean your way out of the room: we all know the saying “I painted myself into a corner”, well the same can be true for sweeping (and vacuuming). While you’re busy dry dusting, moping, or vacuuming your wood floors, be mindful of the cleaning flow. Work your way out of the room.

*try to avoid apathetic habits: if you’re going to clean, throw yourself into the cleaning 100%. A half-hearted cleaning job “saves time” in the here and now, but it incurs a hefty cleaning penalty later on. Apathetic cleanings tend to cut corners or leave something for later, but in leaving things to “clean later” we create more work for ourselves. Sometimes, it becomes harder to clean; it might even take longer than it should. Move furniture, sweep under the rugs, get under objects, and get into those corners.

*dry dust your hardwood floors last of all: dusting your floors should be done only after you’ve finished cleaning everything else. Sweeping, dusting, or vacuuming the floors before you tackle cleaning the rest of the space will result in more work and floors that are dirty all over again.

*(literally) don’t sweep dust and dirt under the floor: pick up those rugs (and other objects sitting on the floor). Move them around, sweep under them. Don’t just sweep around them, and don’t sweep the dirt under the rugs. This extra step will give you a floor that’s so much cleaner. Rugs can trap dust and debris under them, or in their fibres. This is a great habit for floors that will look so much cleaner if we lift the rugs.

When these tools and techniques are used together, dust doesn’t stand a chance to muck up our hardwood floors. Faithful, dedicated effort is the key to a glowing wood floor we’re proud of.