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Five Tips for Your Floors During the Summer

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As summer begins, people around the country are welcoming warmer weather. While your flooring may be down a few notches on your list of t0-do priorities, it’s still important to protect your floors from being damaged over the summer. Increasing heat and humidity accompanied by wear and tear can cause your floors serious harm. Below, we’ve compiled some tips to prevent that from happening.

Protect your Hardwood from Sunlight

UV rays can easily cause color deterioration in hardwood. Shutting your blinds, drapes, or shutters can keep your home cool and prevent UV damage. If your home has horizontal blinds, simply tilt them upwards. This directs the sunlight up towards your walls and ceilings instead of down on your hardwood floors. You can also use large area rugs in the parts of your home that are exposed to significant amounts of sunlight. 

Regulate Humidity

Wood responds to humidity by expanding and contracting. Failing to keep your home at a consistent level can cause your hardwood to warp. Keeping your home’s humidity level between 35% and 55% is a good practice. Using a dehumidifier may also be necessary in areas with natural high humidity, but otherwise, regulating your home’s temperature with air conditioning should be enough to keep your hardwood safe.

Use Doormats 

Homes typically see as much or more in and out traffic during the summer months. This leads to mud, dirt, and sand being easily tracked into your home. Even trace amounts being tracked in can damage the finish of your hardwood. A doormat conveniently located at all outside entrances is a simple way to prevent that from happening.

Vacuum and Sweep

As much as we try to avoid it, outside substances will undoubtedly make their way into your home. Consistent sweeping and vacuuming around your home can add years on the life of your floors. It’s important to follow a two step process: sweep with a broom, then vacuum the same areas, at least once a week.

Use the Right Cleaning Products 

Some products can strip your hardwood of its shine, damage the wood, and lead to faster aging. Harsh and damaging cleaning product chemicals will exacerbate the damage to your floors. Always make sure to do proper research on the products you use for your floor.

Contact Us

Contact us today to get in touch with a Classic Floor Designs expert. We are here to help make your next project come to life! With over 40 years of experience, Classic Floor Designs provides hardwood floors, wool and nylon carpet, carpet, area rugs, leather, cork, exotics, and green flooring services to residential flooring, commercial flooring and government clients in the DC area.

Things to Avoid if You Have Hardwood Floor

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The organic material in hardwood flooring makes it much more susceptible to damage than other floorings. Instead of focusing on what you can do to increase the longevity of your hardwood, look to what to avoid. In fact, it is often the most common of practices that can end up ruining your hardwood. Below, we have compiled a list of what to avoid in order to preserve the beauty of your hardwood for as long as possible!

  • Don’t wear your shoes in the house

This one may seem obvious, and a rule prohibiting this is already in place in many households. In addition to scuffs and scratches, moisture and dirt brought in by your shoes can seep into the floor, causing noticeable damage over time.

  • Don’t use harsh cleaners (including vinegar!)

Cleaners that are not specifically designed for wood flooring can cause serious damage. Many households report using vinegar to clean their wood floors, believing it is a natural alternative to the harmful chemicals found in synthetic cleaners. In reality, the acid present in vinegar will eat away at the protective finish covering your floor over time.

  • Carefully move furniture and appliances

Professional movers take moving client’s furniture very seriously. Any damage caused during the move will come right out of their pockets. Use the same caution they do by using felt pads or furniture straps when deciding to move any heavy furniture and appliances. Those dents and scratches are not easily fixed and can end up costing you big. After moving things around, always remember to use protective padding.

  • Don’t steam clean

Steam cleaning your hardwood can cause water damage and warping. Use a damp mop or cloth if necessary, but try to avoid any water contact unless necessary. A microfiber pad or dry mop pad such as a Swiffer will do fine for normal upkeep.

  • Don’t forget about the dog

Your dogs, as cute they may be, can cause a lot of damage to your hardwood floors. The only effort you can make to mitigate this is by keeping his or her nails trimmed. This will limit the scratching when the dogs run around the house. If you have a puppy, you’ll want to have house training done as soon as possible. A urine stain is one of the worst for the health of your floor.

  • Don’t forget to refinish

No matter how careful you are, the time will come for a refinishing. Reapplying a protective finish smooths out any imperfections and gives your hardwood its shine back.

Contact Us

Need help picking out your new hardwood flooring? Already have an idea in mind? Give us a call at (202) 872-9860 for a FREE consultation. Classic Floor Designs has over 40 years of experience in the Washington DC area, and we are proud to be a premier flooring expert for our clients. Let us get you started, call today!

How to Make Your Hardwood Floors Last Longer

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Hardwood floors make a stunning first impression, increase the value of your home and add warmth to any room. We know you want the beauty of your floors to last a long time without the need for refinishing, fixing or replacement, but we also recognize the challenge of cleaning and protecting hardwood.

Preventing damage to flooring is easy if you’re diligent and practice smart strategies. Start with these five tips to preserve the shine and prolong the life of every wood floor in your home.

Use the Right Cleaner

Before investing in a cleaner promising to restore shine and make wood floors glow, find out how it makes good on its promise. Many products rely on oils or waxes to provide shine. These produce an attractive effect but only serve to break down the finish of your floor over time, leading to the need for sanding and refinishing.

Instead of putting on a false shine, choose a cleaner formulated to remove dirt and reveal the natural beauty of the wood. Bona, Libman, Pledge, Method and other well-known names in home cleaning offer products just for hardwood. Choose a gentle, non-toxic formula, especially if you have pets or children who spend a lot of time in contact with the floor.

Develop a Regular Cleaning Regimen

Use your cleaner as part of a consistent routine designed to keep your hardwood flooring in top shape. Sweep up dirt and debris often to prevent scratches, and invest in a vacuum cleaner made for wood floors to lift the dirt brooms leave behind. Dry dust mops like Swiffer make it easier to reach into corners and grab dust bunnies under large pieces of furniture.

Keep a stash of soft cloths on hand to wipe up spills the moment they happen. Leaving water on the floor can lead to damage, and anything sticky will be difficult to remove if allowed to dry. Should an unidentifiable substance weld itself to your floor, spot clean with a minimal amount of liquid to remove it.

Mop the floor using a dry mop and your chosen cleaner to get rid of the rest of the dirt and grime. When you’re done, you should see the coveted shine for which hardwood floors are prized.

Say No to Shoes

Even if you’re obsessive about wiping your feet before heading indoors, your shoes are likely still holding onto dirt and debris. Routinely tracking these particles across wood floors can lead to scratches and scuffs in the finish. High heels are also problematic because the force focused on the concentrated surface of the heel can dent the wood.

To avoid both issues, remove your shoes the moment you come inside. Place a boot tray or rug by the door, and ask guests to help you preserve the floors by taking off their shoes when they visit. For a more attractive solution, consider investing in a bench with built-in storage cubbies for the shoes you wear most often.

Give Your Furniture a Soft Touch

Wood flooring looks great in the kitchen and dining area, but the constant scraping of chairs does no small amount of damage to the finish. Since you can’t expect everyone to remember to pick up their chairs instead of pushing them in or to maneuver themselves sideways to avoid pushing chairs back, invest in adhesive felt pads or gliders. These can be placed on the bottoms of kitchen chair legs or on the feet of small tables. You can also get more permanent gliders designed to be nailed in place so that they don’t slip off.

For larger furniture, consider snap-on felt glides. These not only protect your floors but also make moving couches and other big pieces easier when cleaning or rearranging.

Learn to Love Rugs and Mats

To protect wood flooring in high-traffic areas and in places where water or food is likely to be spilled, you need throw rugs, mats or runners. Put mats by the sink and near kitchen counters where the majority of food preparation takes place, and roll out runners in the places the family passes through the most. A welcome mat outside the door encourages everyone to wipe the bottoms of their shoes, and a small rug can be placed just inside to prevent errant dirt from winding up in the house. Remember to clean underneath all mats and rugs when caring for your floors to prevent debris from building up or backings from sticking.

Start practicing these preventative strategies the moment your new floors are installed, and you’ll enjoy beautiful hardwood for many years to come. If you’re ready to get started with an installation, contact one of our specialiststo learn more about your options and find just the right hardwood floors for your home.

Refinishing Hardwood Floors: DIY or Professional Help?

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The great things about hardwood floors: they’re pleasing to the eye and very durable, meaning that if they start getting worn out, they probably don’t need to be replaced. All you need to do is refinish them in order to make them “pop” once more.

Now, we say “all you need to do”, but that should be taken with a word of caution. While it is possible to refinish your floors by yourself, experience is key here. A professional will know how to handle the process from start to finish, whereas someone who is inexperienced may skip some steps or do them improperly. A poor refinish can devalue your home rather than improve it!

A pro can take anywhere from two to five days to complete the task, adding time for complex jobs or poor weather that interferes with drying times. They will typically do one of two things: 1) they will rebuff the finish, or 2) they will sand and finish the floor. The downside to hiring a professional is, of course, the cost. Either of these two jobs can cost you anywhere between $1 and $4 per square foot of floor that needs to be done.

If you don’t want to shell out the money for a pro and you are supremely confident in your DIY ability, here’s what you can do to save some cash.

First of all, make sure you’ve purchased some high-quality dust masks or respirators. You will also need eye and ear protection (this process is messy and loud!). You can seal off doors and other rooms with plastic sheeting to prevent dust from escaping to other parts of the home.

If you’re going to buff the floor, you will need to rent a buffer and purchase about a gallon of floor finish. Make sure you test the buffer and the finish before committing to doing the whole area! Find a small, inconspicuous spot, buff out the old finish, then apply the new one. If it sticks, you’re in good shape.

If your intention is to sand and refinish the floor yourself, you’ll need to rent a drum sander and buy sandpaper, wood filler, and floor finish. We do not recommend using a drum sander unless you know what you’re doing with it, due to its tendency to gouge the floor if left in one spot for too long. Use progressively smaller grains of sandpaper as you go to get a nice, smooth surface.

Be smart about this process! We can’t emphasize enough that this is a job for somebody that at least has experience, if not formal job training. If you aren’t certain of your own ability, it is a lot cheaper to hire a pro than it is to have to redo everything after a mistake. Good luck!

-Kelly Dillon

Vacuuming 101

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Classic Floor Designs on Saturday, November 28th, 2015

Plug it in. Turn it on. Vacuuming is really that easy, right?

Well, there might be just a bit more finesse to this routine chore including how, exactly, to vacuum those tricky shag rugs and how to get the perfect W cutline.

Check out this video to give you the inside scoop and become a vacuuming pro!