What should I know about kitchen floor care? Cleaning your kitchen floor with Pine-Sol and a little bleach leaves it sparkling clean. Kitchen floors, whether covered in linoleum, hardwood, or tile, should...
Kitchen floors, whether covered in linoleum, hardwood, or tile, should be kept as clean as possible. This is not only for hygienic reasons either. Dirt, grit, and even abrasive food crumbs can wear down a floor's finish making the floor look old and dull and causing rough spots which trap dirt and make future cleanings more difficult.
To properly care for your kitchen floor, you should plan on vacuuming it at least once a week. If it is particularly dirty, you may have to vacuum even more often. Also, the floor should be swept any time there is dirt and/or crumbs on it. Sweeping may be required daily or less frequently depending on how much use your kitchen gets and how careful the people in your household are about spills.
Kitchen floors should also be mopped regularly. This can be done every two weeks if the floor is kept relatively clean. Mopping once a week may be more practical for kitchen floors that get a lot of use, particularly in large households or in homes where children are frequently preparing their own snacks in the kitchen or if you simply get a lot of foot traffic through your kitchen.
Some foods and drinks are more difficult to clean up after they are spilled than are others. According to Melissa Briones, owner of Melissa's House Cleaning in Lawton, Oklahoma, Kool-Aid, coffee, or soda stains may require a cleaning with bleach. If so, simply add bleach to a bucket of warm water and mop the stain. Briones also recommends Pine-Sol.
Before mopping, you should remove any furniture from the kitchen if possible. You can mop around the legs of a large table easily enough, if need be, but removing chairs and other smaller pieces of furniture will definitely make your job much easier. You can also prepare your floor for mopping by first vacuuming or dust-mopping it in order to remove any loose particles that could scratch your floor's finish. Then, mop with your choice of floor cleaners.
There are some floor cleaners that don't require rinsing, but if you do need to rinse, be sure that you use fresh water. If any sticky residue is left behind on your floor, it can become a magnet for dirt. If you don't rinse thoroughly, you will find yourself needing to mop more frequently than you would otherwise have to if you had simply taken the extra time to rinse the floor properly in the first place.
If there are any scuff marks on your kitchen floor, you can try to remove them by rubbing them with a pencil eraser. If this doesn't work, try wiping the area with distilled vinegar and water.
Once your floor is completely clean and dry, return the furniture, which you had moved prior to mopping, back in to the kitchen.
It is not particularly difficult to care for your kitchen floor, but like many things, it should be cleaned consistently if it is to maintain its original luster.
