Monday Motivation #59 | Spring Cleaning: Floors, Carpets & Rugs

We’ve reached then end of this season of The Art of Home and the end of our spring cleaning series. We have covered motivations for spring cleaning from history, modern sources and the Bible and we discussed tools and supplies. Then we utilized the top-down cleaning method to work our way from the surfaces over head, to the vertical surfaces like walls/windows and doors, then curtains and linens, and in our last spring cleaning episode we covered appliances, furniture and the forgotten. Today we will wrap things up with everything under foot…floors, rugs and carpets.

Transcript

Allison 0:00

Happy Monday, homemakers. Welcome to Monday Motivation, brought to you by the Art of Home Podcast, where we are exploring how homemakers cultivate a place to belong. I'm your host, Allison Weeks. I'm a wife, a mom, a granny, and I've been practicing the Art of Home for over 30 years. Thank you so much for joining me for a little Monday motivation today. Every Monday, you can meet me here for homemaking tips, ideas, and encouragement in this short form episode. If you like what you hear today, be sure to check out our long form episodes that come out every Wednesday, where we feature stories of homemakers just like you and deep dives into topics related to homemaking. We've reached the end of this season of The Art of Home and the end of our spring cleaning series. We have covered motivations for spring cleaning from history, modern sources, and the Bible, and we discussed tools and supplies. Then we utilized the top-down cleaning method to work our way from the surfaces overhead to the vertical surfaces like walls, windows, and doors. Then curtains and linens. And in our last spring cleaning episode, we covered appliances, furniture, and the forgotten. Today we will wrap things up with everything underfoot floors, rugs, and carpets. And if I sound a little bit off today, I am just getting over a pretty bad cold. So you might hear my voice crack a little bit. Thanks for your patience. First, clear the floor as much as possible. Clean up all the clutter from the floor. Move small pieces of furniture and small area rugs. We will talk about large area rugs in just a minute. Like with every other area of cleaning, you always want to start with dry cleaning methods before wet ones. Attacking dusty, dirty floors with a wet mop will not get you clean floors. It will get you a muddy mess. So get out your vacuum or your dust mop and go over the whole floor, large area rugs and baseboards. Be sure to use the correct dry cleaning tool for your type of flooring. Carpets will need a vacuum. All hard surfaces will require a broom, dust mop, or vacuum head that can clean hard floors without scratching them. If you have pets, be sure to use the pet attachment for extra power picking up hair, and for carpets, you may need to use a special carpet rig to loosen the pet hair from the fibers before vacuuming. The type of wet cleaning you do will depend on your type of flooring. For hardwood, avoid using too much water or harsh cleaners. Both can damage the wood. Instead, use a damp flat head mop and cleaner designed for hardwood. My tool of choice for my hardwood floors is a Bona flat microfiber mop with a built-in solution holder and spray head. If they are looking a little worse for wear, your wood floors might need refinishing. I recommend hiring a professional for this job. Similar to hard wood, laminate flooring should only be cleaned with a damp mop, not soaking, and a cleaner specifically formulated for laminate flooring. Tile and vinyl, however, can handle a bit more moisture, and my favorite way to clean my tile floors is my trusty steam mop. It is lightweight, produces powerful steam to clean and sanitize floors, and it has a two-sided removable cleaning head cover, of which I have several. So when one gets saturated with dirt, ew, I can quickly change it out and keep on cleaning. It sure beats lugging around a bucket of mop water, and it really does an amazing job of cleaning the floors. The tile grout is another matter. That will collect dirt that the steamer just can't quite get to. So spring cleaning is a great time to get after the grout. Or if you have a lot of tile like I do, space out your grout cleaning by doing a little at a time throughout the season or even throughout the year. My preferred method: a grout brush and mild spray cleaner. Spray on the cleaning solution. I just use my all-purpose Miss Myers cleaner that I keep in the kitchen. Let it sit a couple of minutes, then scrub with the grout brush and wipe away the dirty solution with a damp microfiber cloth. I like to carry around a little bowl or bucket of water with me as I do this job to dip the brush in and to rinse out the cloth. Eventually, though, I do have to take it over to the sink, rinse it out thoroughly, and change the water in the bowl. To wet clean your carpets, either hire a pro or if you have a carpet steam cleaner or you can rent one, do it yourself. If you're DIYing it, you will want to pre-treat any stains before going in with the steam cleaner. Be sure to follow the manufacturer's instructions on using the steam cleaner for the best results and make sure you increase airflow in the room to speed up the drying time. For baseboards, you will want to use a damp microfiber cloth and just wipe away any remaining dust or dirt that you did not get up in your dry cleaning step. Now let's talk rugs. Small area rugs can be taken outside for a good shake or drape them over a fence and use a carpet beater to beat out the dirt and the dust trapped in the rug's fibers. Thoroughly vacuum both sides of the rug before returning it to its place. If the rug is machine washable, throw it in the wash and air dry thoroughly before returning it to the floor. Large area rugs can be cleaned, but they may require professional attention. Vacuuming the front and the back goes a long way towards removing the dirt and the dust. If you are able, take it outside, drape it over the fence or the wall, and beat out the remaining dirt. Be very careful when you're wet cleaning your rugs. Some of the newer synthetic rugs are made to be machine washed, which is great, but wool rugs, silk rugs, and antique rugs should not be soaked with water, but carefully spot cleaned as needed. Some dry cleaners offer rug cleaning services, so you might want to look into that if the rug is really dirty. And there you have it basic spring cleaning for your floors and rugs. And that is a wrap on our 2026 spring cleaning series. I hope that you have found some inspiration from this series for tackling those bigger seasonal cleaning projects. If you take nothing else from this series, remember these three tips. Number one, use the right tools and cleaning products for each job. Number two, always clean from the top down and from dry to wet. Number three, work at your own pace and in your timing. Seasonal cleaning is a marathon, not a sprint. That's all for this Monday motivation. I will be back on Wednesday with the final homemaker portrait of the spring season. Until then, keep practicing your art of making a home.