Holidays at home are a wonderful thing, but they can also be hard on your floors. SVB’s hardwood flooring experts know the holidays mean extra shoes on your floor, bits of food falling, and tons of little messes to clean up. Before the season of parties, snow, and mistletoe takes off, find out how to take care of your floors so they’ll be beautiful before, during, and after the holidays.
Vacuum Regularly
We don’t always think of vacuuming as a way to protect our floor. Even if your floor isn’t ‘dirty,’ you should get the vacuum out once a week, or so, to keep dust and dirt away. Walking on those little grains can grind them into your hardwood, disrupting, dulling the finish and eventually hurting your hardwood.
Related Read: Your Staircase & Holiday Decorating
Keep Water off the Floor
When you’re bringing plants inside for the season, don’t forget to place them on trays to protect your floors. If the cold weather causes your pipes, pets, or anything else to leak or bring in water, clean up messes immediately. And, of course, have a plan for wet or snowy shoes coming into the house. Put down mats or rugs that people can wipe wet shoes on, before they track them over your hardwood. If the weather is really bad, or the party is pretty casual, consider a ‘no shoes’ policy.
Related Read: 3 Decorative Ideas for Keeping Wet Shoes off Your Hardwood Floors
Embrace Your Furniture
Holiday parties can mean moving around chairs, adding extra tables, and rearranging rooms. Before the season gets rolling and the guests start showing up, add some floor protectors to your furniture legs. If you’ve never used floor protecting pads or had trouble getting them to stick in the past, check out our tips to keep floor protectors put!
Know Your Floor
Your flooring manufacturer or installer knows hardwood better than you! Ask them for the best ways to take care of your particular floor. Jot down the specifics about your floor – care tips, type of finish, wood species, etc.- and hang on to this information. Hardwood floors are a long-term investment. Don’t expect yourself to remember every detail in 15 years!
Don’t:
Clean using anything abrasive. Harsh cleaning tools (like steel wool or ammonia) can hurt your floor more than help it. If there’s something sticky on your floor you can’t seem to get rid of, like wax or gum, try applying ice. After the mess has hardened, use something like a credit card or a putty knife to clean it up. Be careful not to scratch your floor when scraping it off.
Ignore the humidity in your home. Your floors get dry and can even shrink when the humidity is too low. On the other hand, excessive humidity can cause swelling and buckling as water soaks into your floors. Invest in a humidifier or dehumidifier if you notice your floor reacting like this. Ideally, the humidity should be between 35% and 50% in your home. Winter typically means low humidity in your home.
Forget the rugs. If you’re expecting a lot of traffic on an area of your hardwood, protect it with a rug. Holiday guests in heels or children playing with hard toys can leave tons of tiny imperfections on your floor. Laying down a nice area rug protects your floor until the end of the holiday season, while still showing it off in less-trafficked areas.
These simple but important tips can keep your floors beautiful and your holiday easy. At SVB, we want you to be thrilled with the way your home looks year round. If you’re doing everything you can, but your floors have already sustained some damage, or they’re just looking aged, it might be time to refinish. Call Kansas City’s hardwood floor specialists at (816) 965-8655 to get the best hardwood team on your floor before the guests arrive!
