The Secret to a Clean Floor | Part 2

By: Michelle Tran

Last week, we looked at hard floors and the best methods for an immaculate sweep. This week is all about finishing those floors with a mind-blowing mop! Finding a great mop routine and making the floors shine might seem impossible; but just like sweeping, there are some great tips and tricks for getting those floors perfect.

Now that you’ve swept your floors, swept them again, and gotten up all of that pesky debris, what about the mopping? Neither sweeping or moping is easier or harder; they both take discipline and intention to clean. There’s this first, nifty little trick for the space in bathrooms and kitchen underneath the cabinets. Splotches, spills, and leaks collect under that little ledge beneath our cabinets, and it can be hard to get it up just by mopping. Before you’re ready to mop, take a clean rag and soak it up with whatever you use to mop your floors. Once you’ve prepared this floor rag, get down on your hands and knees and get all of the spots and other stray crumbs that might be hiding under this nook.

When you’re ready to mop the entire floor, use your preferred hard floor cleaner and really juice it all up. Don’t hold back. The more cleaning solution you use, the better. This lets the spots and splatters that have hardened to loosen up as you’re mopping other sections of the floor. Begin a first mop. Mopping works best when you mop your way out of the room. Mop little sections at a time so that it’s easier for you to see everything and get it up. Use firm pressure on the handle so that the mop-head stays nice and tight on the floors, but don’t use so much that you’re always breaking your mops! If you come across a spot that won’t come up no matter how much you mop, a handy trick is throwing a scrubbing pad onto the floor and using the toe or heel of your foot to dig in and scrub it up. This saves you time (and your back!) by not bending over continually. Just keeping working those sections until you’ve mopped the entire room. Once the room is finished the first time, just like in sweeping, it might need a second mop. We call this “double mopping”. It might seem redundant, but we promise you it’s not. Clean you mop head, however it is specifically designed, juice up the floor, and mop your way out of the room once more.  The first mop gets most of the dirt up, the second mop gets the rest of it up.

Sweeping and mopping floors is a big task, but once you’ve got this routine down, cleaning your own floors will seem effortless— and best of all, your floors will be perfect.