Month: April 2015

Did you recently install prefinished hardwood floors in your home? Do you know how to properly care for your new prefinished floors? If not, you should learn the proper care techniques so that you can extend the lifetime of your brand new floors!

At Smith Brothers, we recognize the importance of regular maintenance and care when it comes to preserving the quality of your hardwood floors. While wood flooring requires much less attention than carpet, it can still suffer from an owner’s neglect.

If you’ve recently installed prefinished hardwood floors in your home, you should know how to properly care for your new floors. Here are a few simple cleaning tips to help you maintain prefinished hardwood floors:

Regular Sweeping and Mopping

With prefinished hardwood, you should be diligent to sweep or mop your floors every few days in order to prevent an accumulation of dust, dirt, and other debris. When dirt builds up on the surface of your floors, it can easily cause scratches when you walk over it.

Vacuum Proper

Don’t just use your regular carpet vacuum on hardwood floors, as the beater bar can scratch the surface of the wood. Vacuuming should be done without a beater bar and you should be careful to use the proper attachment to clean the grooves between wood planks and pick up dust and debris that has gathered in corners of rooms or along the baseboard.

Weekly Cleaning

Prefinished hardwood is unique in that it should be thoroughly cleaned with a proper hardwood flooring cleaner about once every week. The specific manufacturer of your floors should be able to tell you the exact cleaner you should be using.

When preparing to clean your floors, mix cleaning solution with water according to the instructions. Take out your trusted mop and be sure to wring it out thoroughly before hitting the floors. An excess of water can actually cause long-term damage to your floors.

The “Spill Patrol”

Because hardwood floors are susceptible to an accumulation of liquids of any kind, you should be careful to thoroughly clean up any spills or wet spots as quickly as possible. Excess moisture building up in your floorboards is a recipe for disaster, so be diligent to clean up spills with a mop or rag immediately after they occur.

Fight Tough Stains Smart

If stains do occur, you can remove them using a recommended stain-removing product and a clean, soft rag. Once again, your floor’s manufacturer should be able to give you an idea of the specific stain removal product you should use to remove stains without ultimately doing damage to your floors.

If you’d like to talk to one of our hardwood-flooring professionals about your floor’s specific needs for thorough cleaning and proper care, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 1-403-917-0847 today!

Have you recently installed brand new hardwood floors throughout your home? Do you know why you should put area rugs to use with your new floors? If not, you should certainly consider the ways in which area rugs can benefit your floors in the long-term.

At Smith Brothers Flooring, we value the long-term investment that many homeowners make in hardwood floors. That’s why we believe it’s essential to help our clients do everything possible to protect their hardwood floors.

Area rugs are a great way to protect your hardwood floors while also giving certain rooms of your home a creative, personal design element. When putting down area rugs, there are a number of factors you should consider:

Function and Flush

When selecting the color and design of area rugs, be sure to think about their function in your home. You should also think about the mood you’re trying to create for a given room. For example, a room with solid or neutral colored walls might benefit from a colorful rug with a bold design that attracts attention.

On the other hand, if you’ve gone through a lot of effort to decorate the interior walls of your home, you might want to choose a neutral colored rug that won’t take the attention away from the other design elements of your home.

Positioning and Dimensions

The size and placement of area rugs is also important to using them properly. A rug that is clearly too large or small can significantly upset off the balance of a room’s décor. A good general rule for choosing the size of area rugs depends on the size and spacing of furniture in a given room.

You should either choose an area rug that will fit the legs of all furniture in the room, or none of the legs at all. If your choose to place a rather large rug in the living room, you should be sure to leave at least eighteen inches of space between the edges of the rug and the walls.

Use your Creativity

While it’s generally easier to find, and make use of, rectangular rugs, other shapes and sizes can be used creatively throughout your home. Round, oval, or other oddly shaped rugs can be nice conversation pieces if placed in a creative manner.

For example, a circular or curvy area rug can help to make a room with a lot of angles appear much less severe. Narrow or awkwardly shaped rooms can also benefit from circular rugs, and layering rugs is a great way to warm up a room while adding depth.

Stay Safe

Once you’ve decided on the placement of rugs in your home, you need to think about doing what you can to avoid trips and slips. Applying acrylic-latex caulk to the back of your rug about every six inches is a relatively simple and cost-effective way to slip-proof your area rugs.

If you’re looking for more advice on proper care of hardwood floors, or you’d like to explore your options for installing new hardwood floors in your home, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 1-403-917-0847 today!