It's been a while since I've visited. My wedding day is fast-approaching and I'm soooo busy.

Anyway, the ceremony is at my dad's house (lives alone. Workaholic. NEVER cleans) So I've started the daunting task of cleaning it myself. It's not messy....just VERY dirty and dusty. I have to take a Benadryl before I go just to combat the dust and dog hair. AHHHH!

My problem now is finding the right way to scrub his wood floors. They are unfinished, and haven't been cleaned once since he built the house 15 years ago. His dog follows regular paths of drolling and tracking dirt and has created black paths of grime over certain areas.

Can anyone tell me how to go about cleaning this up? Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks!!

By Bea on Sunday, September 19, 2004 - 11:54 pm:

If they are unfinished you can use any strong detergent cleaner on them.

By Feona on Monday, September 20, 2004 - 06:47 am:

Are they ugly? You might be able to mop and glow them? Might ruin them too so don't blame me if it doesn't work.

How about hiring someone to wax them? Wax and buff them?

Maybe buy some cheap rugs at home depot to cover the worse spots. I have seen 5 by 7 rugs for $50 bucks.

By Feona on Monday, September 20, 2004 - 06:51 am:

The cheapest place to have a wedding might be a american legion hall. Or a neighborhood restaurant like a pizzeria with a backroom. Any restaurant with a back room.

Or a room off the church. We rented a room for $500... That was a gorgeous room too.

I seem people buy plastic pink table clothes and serve soda and snacks. Just alittle reception. It was fine.

By Feona on Monday, September 20, 2004 - 06:52 am:

Also the color comes out of unfinished floors. You think you are getting dirt but it is the color of the floor.

By Mrse on Monday, September 20, 2004 - 09:51 am:

I would check with a hardwood floor place, you should not put water on a wood floor. But from the sounds of it you are not going to have a choice. I work in an old log building, and they had hardwood floors, their was no finish on the floor at all, I got out the automatic scrubber and scrubbed it with that, it went from black, to looking like it was just sanded. Also my mil has a wood floor that has a bit of finish on it here and their, and she damp mops it, and then she waxes the whole thing with future, if it is unfinished, it may soak up alot of wax, so you may need alot. It all depends on how much other stuff needs to be done in the house, I would just damp mop it and not worry about it. On our wedding ( at mom's ) she went nuts cleaning and scrubbing and I told her mom people are not even going to notice. If you decided to scrub it, have one guy mopping up the dirty water, as you are scrubbing dh helped me do this at the hall, it is a huge job.You don't want to wear yourself out. I think you should find out if your dad would get a cleaning company in to help you, you are going to be exhausted, and that is no way to feel if you are getting married. My mom cleaned so much, that she was soooooo up set, when people did not stick around for a long time, dh has a big family so all the older people came and went kind of fast, so that the next set of people could come in, then the younger ones went to the bar she was very upset, lets just say she had a melt down, it was the stress from cleaning so much. I wish we would have rented a hall in the end, it would have made things alot easier, but we could not afford it at the time.

By Emily7 on Monday, September 20, 2004 - 03:00 pm:

I found this article

Information:

You can use a few different off the shelf products which both clean and add polish to the floor. You should be sure that you have really swept or vacuumed the floor well before using these products. Since they have solids in them (wax) and dust will affect the apperance.

You could also use a wood soap such as a Murphy's Oil soap which will leave a bit of a sheen after cleaning. However the shine will not last with the above methods and you will have to constantly reapply them.

If you have hardwood that is very worn you may have to apply the cleaner/polish product a few times to get the shine up as the wood absorbs the wax.


Tools & Techniques:

Use a hardwood floor mop and a spray bottle to apply the cleaner/polish.
Spray only an area that you can effectively clean.
A hardwood floor mop looks like a dust mop only the fibers are shorter with a large surface area for polishing and cleaning.
If you don't have a mop use something like a beach towel which will do an effective job of polishing, but is hard on the knees.