How to Clean Hardwood Floors

Hardwood floors are beautiful and can easily last a lifetime if you take proper care of them. First of all, when we talk about hardwood floors we are talking about sealed hardwood floors. Unsealed floors have not been installed in homes for a very long time. If you think that your floors are not sealed, they must be sealed immediately or they will absorb every liquid spilled on them and will quickly start to dry out and fall apart.

Great Homemade Cleaner for Hardwood Floors

There are a wide variety of commercially available wood floor cleaners. Many of these are quite expensive and contain harsh chemicals. A very simple homemade cleaner can be made from adding a few drops of basic dish soap with distilled water. Put the mixture in a misting spray bottle and clean your hardwood floor in small sections. Make sure that you spray the area that you want to clean and then wipe up immediately with a micro fiber cloth or clean towel. Never let any area remain damp for any period of time as moisture is your floor’s enemy. Adding a splash of white vinegar and lemon juice will add some major cleaning power to your homemade floor cleaner. However, if you add these ingredients to your cleaner, you will have to do a quick wet mop with clean water before you dry each section.

Quick tips to maintain your hardwood floors:

• Sweep your floors at least every week with a Swiffer or with a soft bristled broom. To save time, I have found a get trick for cleaning your floors. If you are sweeping your floors, sweep the dust and dirt onto a carpeted area of your home. Vacuum the carpet thoroughly to remove all of the debris and to help keep abrasive dirt off of your hardwood floors.
• Always wipe up all spills immediately. Water and other liquids can do severe damage to even sealed hardwood floors.
• Protect your hardwood floor by placing furniture pads under the legs of each piece of furniture. This will spread out the weight of your furniture over a larger area and keep your floors from getting scratched.
• Use area rugs to protect your hardwood floors in highly trafficked areas. Also, use floor mats in all entrances to your rooms with hardwood floors. This helps trap dirt and debris and keeps them from scratching the surface of your floors.

Related Posts:

• Microfiber Mops
• Keep Your Floors Cleaner With These Moping Tips
• Floor Cleaning Week Recap

Carpet Cleaning Tips

Here at Chester’s Clean House we have focused on many different carpet cleaning tips over the years. Here are a handful of some of the best tips from the last few years.

Chester's Best Carpet Cleaning Tips:

• How to Remove Red Drink Stains from my Carpet  - How to remove a stain from your carpet using Dawn, a terry cloth, and an iron. Remove as much liquid as possible with a shop vac. Make a mixture of Dawn and warm water and dampen a clean terry cloth with the mixture. Place the cloth over the stain and place an iron on top set to the lowest temperature setting. Over the next 15-30 minutes the stain will be pulled into the cloth and out of your carpet! 
• Homemade Carpet Shampoo - Using 1/2 cup of laundry detergent, 1 teaspoon of ammonia, 1 tablespoon of white vinegar and about 4 cups of hot water you can create a great homemade carpet shampoo. Once you whisk the mixture together, use a sponge to lightly rub the lather over the carpet. Vacuum thoroughly once the lather has dried. 
• Removing Blood from Carpet and Microfiber - Spray the stained area with shaving cream and finished with a clean cloth and water. If the stain has set, use hydrogen peroxide and water to removed the dried blood. On microfiber, use meat tenderizer and water. After it dries, vacuumed thoroughly. 
• A Great Homemade Carpet Deodorizer - By combining equal parts of corn starch and baking soda in a medium sized bowl, you can create a great carpet deodorizer. To give it a wonderful scent, add about a dozen drops of lavender oil. You can add other essential oils as well to customize the scent. 
• Remove Grease Stains from Carpet - To remove a grease stain from carpet, rub baking soda into the stain. Let it stand for a few hours and then vacuum it up once it has dried. 
• Removing Wax from Carpet - The best way to remove wax from carpet is to gently remove as much wax as possible using a dull knife or similar object. Once you have removed as much as possible, cover the spot with a piece of brown paper bag. Run a warm iron over the bag. The wax will adhere to the paper bag. Remove the bag and repeat as necessary. Be careful of the iron's temperature. If you let it get too hot you can burn the carpet.

Tip and Tricks for Cleaning Wallpaper

There are a lot of tips for cleaning wallpaper. Wallpaper presents special challenges because it is generally made of a coated paper or vinyl, adhered to your wall with an adhesive. By improperly or aggressively cleaning, you can easily ruin it. Too much moisture on paper-based wallpaper will reduce it to scraps. Vinyl, modern wallpaper is much more forgiving, but still requires a gentle touch.

Take your time, when cleaning wallpaper and always first test your cleaning in an inconspicuous place!

If you have modern wallpaper, consult the manufacturer as to the best cleaning techniques. However, if you do not know the exact type of wallpaper that you have you can use the following method for cleaning. To clean large areas of wallpaper, get two buckets. Fill one bucket with warm water with a few drops of dish detergent. Fill the second bucket with cool, clean water. Clean the walls with a sponge barely damp with the detergent water. Use minimal pressure and quickly wipe off the surface with a sponge dampened with the cool water to remove any excess detergent. Quickly dry the area with a dry cloth by blotting the entire area. Work small areas to minimize the amount of moisture and to guarantee that you get each area dry before moving on. Always test this procedure on a small inconspicuous area of your wallpaper to make sure that it doesn't cause any damage.

To remove scuff marks from your wallpaper, here are a few good tips:

• Pink pencil erasers used with a very light touch can do a great job, just start with a small sample area.
• Kneaded erasers also can be very effective and offer less chance for damaging the paper.
• Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are very effective, just be gentle. You can take the finish off very quickly with too much scrubbing!
• I had heard rumors that wadded up white bread also works. I was very hesitant, but I did try it. It does work, a little bit. It is not nearly as effective as the other methods on tough marks, but it does remove the light ones. Just make sure to clean up all of the little bits that are going to fall off, you don't need to attract ants after all!

With a little patience, you can get your wallpaper looking great!

Homemade Cleaner For Slate Floors

My sister had slate floors installed several years ago. At first she had trouble keeping the floors from getting a sticky residue from the commercial cleaners she was using. She swears by a mixture of one gallon hot water and 1/2 teaspoon of dish soap. She then polishes the floor with a microfiber mop soaked in a 50/50 solution of water and milk. The mops with microfiber strings work best to get into all of the textures of the slate. After admiring her floors, my wife wants to replace our kitchen floors with slate. We were surprised at how well slate holds up to dirt and how easy it is to clean. If you are thinking of remodeling your kitchen, consider slate.

Reduce the Holiday Dinner Cleanup Blues

With the holiday season approaching, I can’t help but look forward to those huge family dinners that come with the season. Even with relatives bringing a dish or two, it’s always the host’s kitchen that winds up producing the lion’s share. The best way to keep thing humming along smoothly is to clean as you go. Before you even begin your prep work, fill the sink with a few inches of hot soapy water. Wash cutlery, sauce pans, cutting boards, anything that’s through with its current task. If you need any of those items later in your preparations, they will be clean and ready to go. Refresh the water and dish soap as necessary. When the meal is through, you won’t have an already devastated kitchen awaiting all the dinner dishes.

Homemade Eco-Friendly Dish Soap

Here is a great homemade dish soap that uses natural ingredients. Fill a squeeze bottle with about 20 ounces of with castile soap, which is soap made exclusively from vegetable oil. Add into the soap one teaspoon of lemon oil and a half dozen drops or so of both lavender oil and Bergamot oil. Mix well and replace your dish soap. Increase the amount of the essential oils to adjust to your favorite scent, just don't add too much. Essential oils are very powerful and can have negative effects if too much is used.

Easy Solution For Cleaning Painted Walls

To make a simple solution for cleaning painted walls, add a small amount of dish soap to the bucket full of warm water. Use a clean sponge and the solution to clean the wall starting at the top and working your way down. Always wring out the sponge so that it is just damp to avoid spilling everywhere. Once you have cleaned the entire wall, fill your bucket with just warm water and rinse the wall off with the damp sponge. Once finished, dry the wall with a terry cloth towel.

Lipstick On My Collar

Here’s one I hadn’t had to deal with before because I don’t wear lipstick. I was dancing with my wife at wedding recently. She and my shirt must have gotten a little too close. The problem with lipstick stains is that lipstick is oil based. You need something to cut through the grease. Dawn works great! Apply the Dawn directly to the stain. Rinse using cold water. And be gentle, you don’t want to push the lipstick deeper into the shirt.

Homemade Eyeglass Cleaner

Keeping your glasses clean is very important.  Dirty glasses can lead to stronger prescriptions as the dirt will make you eyes work harder to focus. My toddler son wears glasses and he gets them very dirty every day.  We probably clean his glasses at least three times a day.  He just hasn't figured out how not to touch the lenses.

We use a lot of eyeglass cleaner so I worked on making the Ultimate Homemade Eyeglass Cleaning Solution.  It is very simple to make and works great. It is safe for most coatings and very inexpensive to make. Make a mixture of 3 parts rubbing alcohol and 1 part water. Add a few drops of mild liquid dish soap. Mix well and put into a spray bottle. Spray both sides of the lens and rub clean with a clean, soft cloth. I find that a good microfiber cloth works the best.  Be careful to never use paper towels or else you can scratch your lenses.  Rinsing the glasses under the faucet first to quickly wash away excess dirt will also aid in keeping scratches away.

Be Very Careful With Your Bathroom Cleaners!

Always read your commercial cleaning products labels! I cannot stress this enough. If you have any gold or rare metal plated fixtures, do not use any petroleum-based products on them. Also, stay away from using any highly acidic cleaners such as orange or citrus based cleaners or vinegar. These cleaners with instantly destroy the metal's surface, discoloring it permanently. Only use mild dish soap and water or cleaners that are specifically designed for these metals.

Removing Stains From Enamel Bathtubs

Porcelain enamel surface bathtubs can be quite beautiful. The surface is very hard and durable. Be careful when cleaning not to hit the surface with a hard object because the surface can be chipped, which is expensive to repair. Never use harsh abrasives or acids on enamel tubs or small scratches will form that capture more dirt. For tough stains try one of the following:

• Try covering the stain with a paste of borax and lemon juice. Let the paste stand for about 5 minutes and then rinse clean.
• Salt and turpentine work well to remove yellow water stains.
• For the really hard to remove stains, scrub with a brush and a mixture of 3 tablespoons of cream of tartar and one cup of hydrogen peroxide.

For normal cleaning try:

• Washing with 1 gallon of warm water mixed with 1 tablespoon of dish soap and 1 cub of baking soda. Use a sponge soaked in the mixture to scrub the tub working from the top down, then from the back to the drain. Rinse well with clean water and then buff with a microfiber cloth.
• A slightly stronger cleaner is 1 gallon of hot water and 1 tablespoon of a TSP (trisodium phosphate) . TSP can react with other cleaners, so don't add anything else to this recipe. Be sure to rinse well after you have scrubbed the tub.

Refresh Your Microfiber Cloths

Microfiber cloths are fantastic and an absolute must for cleaning around your home. These cloths do get dirty and need to be cleaned. Heat destroys then, and certain chemicals, like bleach, melt them so you have to be very careful. To clean your microfiber cloths, soak them in a warm, not hot, water bath with dish soap for about an hour. Then wash them in your washing machine using the lowest temperature setting, gentle cycle, and regular detergent. Do not use any bleach or fabric softener, this will destroy them. Let the microfiber cloths air dry and they should be good as new!

Tips On Cleaning Leather Furniture

I love my leather furniture. I like the soft warming feel of leather and how well it stands up to our abuse. Leather furniture is very easy to care for. For general cleaning of finished leather, first mix a few drops of mild dish soap into a large bowl or small bucket of water. Dip a clean terrycloth rag into the mixture and ring out well. Use the wet terrycloth rag to wipe down the furniture. Next, wipe down the furniture with a second terrycloth rag dampened with clean water to remove any excess soap. Finally buff with a dry microfiber cloth. For long term care of leather, it is a good idea to use a leather conditioner or cream on it at least twice a year.

Don't use oils, polishes, or cleaners that contain solvents. These will damage your leather overtime leaving it with a tacky or sticky feel.

How to Clean CDs & DVDs

I have seen a lot of people posting very bad ideas on how to clean CDs and DVDs. Using toothpaste will ruin your CDs. Toothpaste is a mild abrasive, even if it looks like your CDs are cleaner, you have just permanently scratched the surface. Other homemade cleaning solutions that I have read about used dish soap and alcohol. Alcohol will ruin your CDs and dish soap will leave a residue that will damage your player. Both bad ideas. The best cleaner is the commercially available CD cleaner. It is not that expensive and available anywhere that you can buy CDs and DVDs. The only other way to clean CDs is to rinse with purified water and remove smudges with a microfiber cloth. Never scrub or buff your CDs, only clean from the center out in straight lines.

Homemade Garden Pest Control

To create an effective insecticide spray for your garden, finely chop 2 garlic cloves and combine with 2 teaspoons of mineral oil. Let the mixture soak for at least 24 hours. Add a quick squirt of liquid soap to 1 pint of water and combine with the garlic mixture. Stir thoroughly and strain with a coffee filter into a glass jar for storage. Combine 1 tablespoon of the solution mixture to a spray bottle full of water. Test the solution on a single leaf of any delicate plants. If no damages occurs, thoroughly spray garden plants. Repeat every few days. Garlic is also an antifungal and may provide additional benefits to your garden.

Keep Your Floors Cleaner With These Mopping Tips

One of the most tedious cleaning jobs I have to do around the house is mopping. Between the dog, cat and kids it seems like an endless job. I have found several things out over the years that have helped keep my work to a minimum.

When mopping with any cleaner, be sure to use the minimum amount of cleaner for the job. If you use too much cleaner, especially dish soap, a sticky film can be left that attracts dirt faster. If you notice this film on your flooring, try mopping with just water. This will help dilute the cleaner left on the floor and will pickup any excess dirt.

Dry mopping with either a Swiffer mop or a Microfiber cloth mop daily, or as often as needed, can really cut down on the number of times you have to get the mop and bucket out. I have noticed on my floors that the Swiffer Wet Jet leaves a sticky film on my floors that just makes it get dirty faster. With the microfiber cloth you can try our homemade floor cleaner. If this leaves a sticky film try using less dish soap in the recipe. This can occur if you use concentrated dish soap.

Following these tips and removing your shoes when you come in the house can really cut down on the dirt left on your flooring. If you would like specific tips for particular floor type you can find many using the categories on the left. If you can't find any tips for your flooring, send us an email using the link on the left and we'll be sure to add some.

Easy Microwave Cleaning

Let your microwave clean itself, well almost. Mix 2 cups of water and 2 teaspoons of white vinegar in a microwave safe bowl and cook for 3-4 minutes depending on the power of your microwave. LET THE MICROWAVE STAND FOR AT LEAST 15 MINUTES! This is very important as the water vinegar mixture will have boiled off and it will be very hot and can easily cause severe burns, so be careful. After the microwave has cooled down take a damp sponge with a small amount of dish soap and wipe out the inside of the microwave, all the baked on stuff should just fall off. Follow up with a clean damp sponge with just water to finish the job.

Homemade Oven Cleaner

Cleaning the oven can be tough after food has baked onto the sides and bottom. I like to use this cleaner to tackle those baked on stains without using harsh chemicals. Mix 5 tablespoons of Baking Soda, 4 teaspoons of white vinegar, and a few drops of dish soap in a bowl to make a paste. Spread the paste onto the stains and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Wipe the area clean with a dry cloths or paper towel. I usually take a wet paper towel and give the inside a through wipe down at the end. You can also use this cleaner to clean under the burners, as the stuff that gets down there is usually pretty hard to get off too.

Homemade Floor Cleaner

Making your own homemade floor cleaner can save you hundreds of dollars per year. It is so easy to do I have been making my own for years.  After some experimentation I have been getting better results than the store bought brands. I use the following recipes for cleaning my floors.

Homemade Floor Cleaner Recipe

• 1/4 cup Dish soap
• 4 cups White Vinegar
• 2 cup Lemon juice
• 2 cups Water

This recipe works best on Pergo laminate floors, finished wood, vinyl, or linoleum. Just place the mixture into a spray bottle and spray onto the floor and use a high quality microfiber mop to mop it up. If you get a sticky residue, try using less dish soap or you can rinse with plan water to reduce the residue.

Natural Floor Cleaner Recipe 
Sometimes I need to do a quick once over before company comes over.  In these instances I like to use a natural floor cleaner that doesn't require any extra steps except to let the floors dry.  In those cases I use a mixture of 2 cups vinegar and 4 cups water in a spray bottle.  I like to use the Swiffer Wet Jet mop because it soaks up more of the moisture.  This recipe also doesn't leave streaks and is better for the environment than the Swiffer's cleaner.

Tips on Using These Homemade Floor cleaners
As you can tell I like to use a spray bottle and a microfiber mop to clean my floors.  This method lets you clean your floors in record time, but doesn't work well when your floors are too dirty.  I try to do a quick mop every other day or else I will be stuck getting out the mop and bucket which greatly increases the amount of time it takes to mop the floor.

I spray small 3' by 3' sections of floor, then wipe with the microfiber mop.  When the cloth starts to leave streaks I either flip over the cloth or start using a new one.  I usually use two microfiber cloths to mop my kitchen and foyer.  If you really want to get things done in a hurry, put a microfiber cloth under each foot.  Spray the cleaner then do a little dance with your feet to mop it up.  My wife laughs at me when I do the "Cleaning Shuffle", but mopping the kitchen in less than two minutes is worth it.

Related Posts:

• Microfiber Mops 
• Keep Your Floors Cleaner With These Moping Tips 
• Floor Cleaning Week Recap
  

Homemade odor remover

Mix 1 cup hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 teaspoon of dish soap, and 1 tablespoon of baking soda in your favorite spray bottle. Spray the solution onto the area of the odor and let dry. Vacuum up the leftover baking soda. This works great on pet urine and vomit. The hydrogen peroxide kills any odor causing bacteria and the baking soda soaks up any other odors like the ammonia smell left from urine. Hydrogen peroxide can fad some fabrics so test first.