Learn How to Clean Wood Floors With DIY Wood Floor Cleaners

Best Of Hometalk
by Best Of Hometalk

This post will show you easy and cost-effective ways to clean your wood floors naturally. Many people are worried about damaging their floors and want to know the best way to clean hardwood floors. If you are on a budget, you can still get clean floors with these methods on how to clean wood floors that include making your own natural hardwood floor cleaner and DIY wood floor cleaner to restore hardwood floors.

How to Clean Wood Floors (Sarah Jane Dunaway)

See post: Sarah Jane Dunaway | Simple Steps to Clean Hardwood Floors


I love the look of hardwood floors. They go well with most decor and there are lots of options on the types of wood, colors, widths, and more. Unfortunately, these floors also show dust, dirt, and animal fur. Thankfully, hardwood floors are easy to clean. There are ways to quickly clean, deep clean, and use natural wood floor cleaner to clean hardwood floors without spending a lot of money.


How to Quickly Clean Hardwood Floors

For a quick cleaning, vacuum or sweep regularly. We have a Roomba that we run just about every day. Be careful not to use the brush-roll head. Brush-rolls can scratch hardwood floors and remove the shine.


Follow these instructions to deep clean your hardwood floors:


Homemade and Natural Hardwood Floor Cleaner

If you are on a budget, but also want to have clean hardwood floors, then here are some DIY wood floor cleaner options. Using products that are most likely already in your home, you can make your own natural hardwood floor cleaner.


Before cleaning your hardwood floor, Hometalker, Duke Manor Farm, swears by using her Shark steamer to give back some of the “newness”. Her floors take a beating between the roller skates, sun, and foot traffic. Instead of going through a whole process to restore her hardwood floors, she uses her Shark steamer since it uses high heat water and leaves no residual water on the floor.


Look at the before and after differences from these pictures, you can no longer see the rug line.

Best Way to Clean Wood Floors (Duke Manor Farm)

See post: Duke Manor Farm | The Best Hardwood Floor Advice You Will Get Today

Wood Flooring (Duke Manor Farm)

See post: Duke Manor Farm | The Best Hardwood Floor Advice You Will Get Today


This Hometalker uses vinegar as a DIY wood floor cleaner. For cleaning wood floors with vinegar, you will need water, white vinegar, Castile soap, and lemon or citrus essential oils. After making this mixture, you add one cup to one gallon of hot water in your mop bucket. After using this natural wood floor cleaner your floors will not only be clean, they will smell wonderful too.

What to Use to Clean Wood Floors (Mom4Real)

See post: Mom4Real | DIY Wood Safe Floor Cleaner


There are other natural wood floor cleaners you make as well.


How to Restore Shine on Hardwood Floors

Over time, hardwood floors lose their shine. Normal wear and tear, sunlight, and abrasion can cause floors to look old and dingy. If you are looking to restore the shine on hardwood floors, here are few options.


Cat owners are all too familiar with Cat Scratch Fever Aka Disguising Pet Scratches in Hardwood Floors. As much as we love our animals, we do not like dealing with the scratches on our floors. Whether you have dark or light wood floors, you can still see pet scratches. This is something that Hometalker, The Rozy Home also deals with. After much trial and error, she found a way to hide the pet scratches. She tried Old English, stain pens, and wax crayons, but all those did were either leave a waxy film or make the floor super slippery.


With a stainable wood filler, a foam brush, and a stain one shade darker than the floor, the scratches mostly disappeared. You can see the results from these before and after pictures. 

Wood Flooring Cleaning Products (The Rozy Home)

See post: The Rozy Home | Cat Scratch Fever Aka Disguising Pet Scratches in Hardwood Floors


If you don’t have pets, but your floors still lack shine, At Home with the Barkers brought her floors back to life with the product, Quick Shine Floor Finish by Holloway House. This wood floor cleaner is safe for kids and pets and also has the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Safer Choice label.


Before using this cleaner, she mopped her floors, yet they still looked dull and dirty. Her floors needed to be refinished but that can be expensive and she did not want the toxic fumes in her house.


On her clean dry floor, she applied the Quick Shine Floor Finish with a damp sponge mop, right out of the bottle. This super easy, environmentally friendly method is one of the best ways to clean

hardwood floors and restore shine.


The Quick Shine Floor Finish is applied to a clean, dry floor with a damp sponge mop. Just squirt right out of the bottle on to the floor. That’s ALL…It is that easy!


DIY Wood Floor Cleaner and Restored Wood Floor on a Budget

For those of you on a budget and looking for how to clean wood floors and then restore them, here is the hardwood floor cleaner that Hometalker, Dawn used to restore her floor for $5.


Dawn’s floors were 5 years old and survived a beating from kids and pets. There was hardly any finish left. In fact, several places had bare wood. After she vacuumed and steam cleaned the floors, she then applied a product called Quick Shine. Using a microfiber mop and following the instructions, she used two coats and only spent $5.


Look at the before and after pictures of the restored wood floor on a budget.

Wood Floor Shine (Dawn @ Creative Cain Cabin)

See post: Dawn @ Creative Cain Cabin | How I Restored My Wood Floor for $5


The Best Way to Clean Hardwood Floors to Remove Stains and Marks

As hard as you try to keep your floors clean, you may still end up having some stains and marks on your hardwood floors. If after deep cleaning your floors you can still see stains and marks, follow these instructions for the best way to clean hardwood floors to remove stains and marks.


This Hometalker mistakenly used Sharpie markers to decorate a birthday sign while it was on her hardwood floors. She had multi-colored Polka dots all over her newly redone hardwood floor. She tried searching for what do do about permanent marker on wood floors but was not successful. So, she turned to one thing that removes just about anything - Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. With lots of elbow grease, those Magic Erasers did the trick and removed the permanent marker from here hardwood floors. Look at her before and after shots!

Wood Floor Marker Remover-Before (Rebecca Patterson Watson)

See Post: Rebecca Patterson Watson | Wood Floor Mark Remover

Wood Floor Marker Remover-After (Rebecca Patterson Watson)

See Post: Rebecca Patterson Watson | Wood Floor Mark Remover


Now you have learned how to clean wood floors using DIY wood floor cleaners, restore shine, and remove marks from hardwood floors. You also now have tips on how to do a quick clean, a deep clean, and a restoration of the floors even if you are on a tight budget.


Now it’s your turn to use a hardwood floor cleaner to improve the look and feel of your wood floor. We’d love to see what wood floor cleaners you use and any tips and tricks you have found to clean wood floors. Share them on Hometalk, so others can see your shiny, clean hardwood floors. We can’t wait to see your before and after pics!


Written for the Hometalk community by: Rachel Belkin | Cha Ching Queen

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 2 comments
  • Everything Pretty Everything Pretty on Jan 22, 2019

    Combining vinegar and castile soap cancels each other out. You might as well save money and omit both of them.

    • Joan Joan on May 27, 2019

      I clean cabins and I use a similar recipe for cleaning hardwood foors but instead of castile soap I use a few drops of dish detergent and sometimes use orange peels soaked in the vinegar for 2 weeks to give a scent boost naturally. Works good no complaints from guests about black sock feet.

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