apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

My pugs lick it clean. ;)

ours is white (!) tile and it gets so grimy. I think that this point we need to get down on our hands and knees and scrub it with a brush. There are spots that the mop won't get off anymore. :(

we've got hardwood floors in the kitchen (cherry!), so i use the bona wood floor cleaner system like i do in the rest of the apartment. works like a charm!

We will have hardwoods once the floors are finished. Our restorer says water and vinegar. I will likely sweep it up after dishes ever night, damp mop if I've been particularly messy, and that should keep it pretty tidy. Ideally, I'll get down on my hands and knees weekly to every other week and scrub the grunge with more vinegar and water.

My current house has 8x8-off white tile, and I hate it with a burning passion. It is impossible to keep clean, especially since I cook a lot and we have two cats and two kids. I sweep, I mop, it always looks dirty! I miss my old hardwood floors, it hid more sins.

I can't wait to replace it and I want to get cork, but it happens to be in the foyer, the kitchen, the breakfast room, the back hall, the laundry room AND the powder room, so it's a pretty expensive wish.

When I do mop, I always use the vinegar and water. I buy vinegar by the gallon, literally, it's so good for so many things!

We're in a fairly small apartment, so we sweep, then use a sponge on hands/knees.

We have horrible cream-colored vinyl with a sort of light brown pattern on it. I try and sweep regularly and mop with a sponge mop and Pine-Sol when it gets funky. I'd get something nice and organic to mop with but the giant bottle of Pine-Sol predates me living here and I want to use it up!

That said, have you guys ever done a mop roundup? I don't want a Swiffer but I'd like something where the head is easy to replace when it gets grotty. I think mine has actually been discontinued so there is no way I can get a new sponge head for it.

Tip: I save the little flat plastic things that keep bread wrappers closed. These are good for scraping stubborn gunk from the floor. (I may have gotten this tip from AT, who knows).

I vacuum it to get up loose stuff & dog hair, then sometimes mop but more often get onto hands and knees and wipe section by section. Ugh.

I have hear that cork is hard to keep clean? Anyone know, one way or other? I am sure Peggasus would like to know too.

For a swiffer-stand-in: they make dust mop type things. long handle with a wide flat head that you put a terry-cloth cover on. you can take the cover off and toss it in the wash, or just replace when it gets nasty. i spray murphy's wood soap on mine to do the hardwoods.

if you're a hands-and-knees scrubber, take a tip from restaurants. get the scrub brush that will screw onto a broom handle, save your back!

I loathe our kitchen floor. We live in a rental apartment that was very dirty when we moved in. We scrubbed everything, but the floor still doesn't look clean. I even got down with a Dobie and ammonia/water, but it still looks grimy. It's off-white tile with chips and stuff, ugghh! We sweep and use a steam mop with water or water and vinegar.

My husband and I are pretty much on a schedule. We have bamboo floors in the kitchen and we vaccuum, then use the bona system every 2 weeks. We don't cook a whole lot.

We use the handy dandy hand vaccuum when my husband drops cookie crumbs all over the floor. If we make a mess on a off week, we just bona. We have a small galley kitchen, so bona takes literally 2 minutes...

I recently bought a Shark Steam mop and love it. I have hardwood floors in the kitchen, so I usually vacuum first then use the mop to clean up. Works beautifully.

I was raised to believe that the only way to really get a floor clean is to get down on your hands and knees and scrub. My husband believes mopping does the job just fine.

That being said, we generally sweep and then mop (even if I do think it's just pushing dirty water around). And if my parents are coming for a visit I get down and scrub.

Ugh, we also have off-white tiles but worse, they're textured stone! I'd have to scrub this stuff on my hands and knees every day to keep it consistently clean. Needless to say, it goes without.

I have a Sh-Mop. This is like a Swiffer except it uses washable covers made of terrycloth. I love it. I can use any kind of cleaner I want, and the cloths clean up very easily in the washer. (It's not as useful if you have to use the laundromat.) You can order them online, and I've seen knockoffs at Home Depot (but I like the originals). They were originally designed by the Clean Team.

If you have an old vinyl floor, it is worth the time and effort to strip it and apply an acrylic floor wax (like Future). It fills in all the little cracks and gaps that collect dirt. It made a huge difference for me - my floor went from dirty all the time to easy to clean. The worst part is that you have to strip off all the old gunk with ammonia first, but it lasts about a year.

I do it with a ringable sponge mop, on spray bottle of diluted cleaning solution, and another spay bottle of water.

A former roommate loved the spraying swiffer, but it drove me crazy. When you spray soap on the floor without rinsing it off, it just becomes glue and traps all sorts of junk to the floor.

I am a firm believer that if you sweep often, you only need to mop once a month.

I have the generic off-white tiles that seem to be ubiquitous in starter homes. I vacuum and then mop them with floor cleaner. I'll get down and scrub with a sponge if there's something sticky on the floor; however, I'm usually pretty good at not getting foods other than coffee on the floor.

shmop!

I used to get down on my hands and knees every weekend when I cleaned. But then I discovered that boiling water and just a touch of dish washing liquid does an amazing job. Or add a bit of bleach when things are really bad. I was so thrilled with the results that I even blogged about my discovery! Sad but true.

My shark steam mop is the best solution I've found. Plain tap water, no chemicals. Made many other stops before arriving here, but I love my steam mop.