Welcome back!
If you're anything like me and my household, you're constantly battling dirty floors that are difficult to maintain. Sure, I'll admit it's easier for some households to maintain clean floors.
However, for THIS household, dirt and dog hair-free floors really doesn't happen often. Let me paint a picture for you:
We live in a dusty, agriculture-rich area. My husband is a farmer who walks in with dirty boots. He tries to remember to remove them, but I can't blame him for just walking in the house when it's 100+ degrees outside. We have three dogs. Three, very lovable, cuddly, dogs.....and for the LONGEST time we didn't have grass. So please imagine three dogs running, playing, tackling each other on DIRT then barreling inside the house covered in dirt, mud, and sticks.
So I fully understand the struggle of maintaining clean(ish) floors.
However, after years of struggle filled with trial and error, I finally figured out what works best for our laminate flooring.
First off, when we moved into our current house, we knew we were going to be remodeling the kitchen, so I immediately suggested we redo the flooring as well. The flooring that was in the house before was not bad by any means, however, it was a dark, shiny laminate flooring with a wavy texture that just trapped dirt. The sheen showed a LOT of dirt, dust, and hair, no matter how hard we worked at it.
So, we decided to change the flooring - to a lighter color laminate with a matte-finish. We got our flooring from Costco (on sale!) and I'm incredibly happy with the purchase.
We went with laminate for multiple reasons, but the main two were cost and durability. As much as we love real wood floors, it was out of our budget and we knew with three dogs they'd get torn into immediately.
Now, I know that ripping your flooring out really isn't option number one. SO, here are the exact products and steps I use to get my floors clean and barefoot approved!
*all products will all be linked below*
Step one: SWEEP. Good old fashioned dry sweeping. Now, I do have a secret weapon for this too. Our automatic vacuum is life-changing. We recently got it and it's been one of the best purchases we've made. All you have to do is sweep into a pile in front of it and it sucks it up like a vacuum. Seriously, amazing. Otherwise you're always left with a line from your dustpan and it's a never ending battle. This has prevented that from being a problem for us.
Step two: SWIFFER/Vacuum. I use a dry Swiffer Vac to help collect any excess hair, dust/dirt. I've tried vacuuming with my big Bissell vacuum and it might totally work for you, but I've noticed that for our floors and the amount of dog hair and fine dust that can accumulate cause me to need to "dust" my floors in addition to vacuuming. Our large Bissell vacuum ends not picking everything up and I have to Swiffer anyway.
Step three: MOP. Okay, so with laminate you can't mop in the traditional sense because laminate is not waterproof, they are water resistant. SO, we use a "squirt + mop" product. This is also the step where you could use a Swiffer Wet Jet. We don't have one and read the cleaner could be toxic to pets, so instead we use The Method Squirt and Mop in Lemon/Citrus (smells so clean!) As far as we know, this cleaner is not toxic and we love the performance. I use a Rubbermaid Reveal Spray Mop and their Reveal Microfiber Wet Mopping Pad. The pads can be washed and reused (win!)
*I don't fill the reusable spray bottle, I just squirt the citrus cleaner on the floor and put it on the nearest surface. I do this probably 3-4 times a week. It can get a little tiresome, but the more I keep it up, the less work it is later on.
THAT'S IT. This routine can be used on all hard flooring; laminate, wood, vinyl, linoleum, and tile. The Method has a Squirt and Mop specifically for hard floors (what we use) and one for Wood floors that smells DIVINE. I won't lie, we use it sometimes because I love the way it smells so much. But we try to stick to the Hard Floor cleaner for our laminate.
I know it seems like a lot of steps, and I'm hoping once our grass is fully installed and rooted it helps cut down on the amount of dust that the dogs drag in and in turn, make my life a little easier.
I hope this gives you an idea of what you could do to help your current flooring situation, no matter what type you have.
May the FLOORS be with you. <3
XO.
ALL PRODUCTS MENTIONED:
- Squirt and Mop (Citrus, Hard Floor Cleaner) **Citrus was not online, Sage scent was linked instead**
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