12 Comments

  1. I have dark floors and love them too. My house was built in 1940 and I have the original hardwood. They were golden oak and I had the refinished/stained. I love how they turned out. I also use a steamer to clean mine…however I only use water in the steamer. I am pretty sure it said to NOT use any cleaning solutions in the steamer…only water. I have been using it with water only for years….my floors are always perfectly shiny:)

  2. I was wondering how you liked the Dyson stick vacuum? I had an old Dyson animal that I stupidly replaced with a bissell pet hair eraser. We have hardwood throughout the house with the exception of 2 braided and one seagrass rug downstairs and wool area rugs in each of the kids rooms upstairs. Parts of the bissell broke almost immediately, it spread more hair than picked up, destroyed the binding on my seagrass rug, was an all around dog to operate for the 2 months or so I owned it until the brush roller snapped and I happily returned it to BB&B. We have 3 large shedding dogs and 3 small children. Daily floor cleaning is a must around here. Does the Dyson stick have the power I would need to suck all that yellow lab hair out of the braided rugs?

    While I found the bissell pethair eraser to be lacking in quality and performance if I ever chose to leave my wonderful husband, it might be for my bissell crosswave. It’s that fabulous.

  3. Thank you for all the great information. Very helpful.

  4. We were told NOT to use a steam mop on our hardwood floors – I used it on the ceramic tile in our kitchen before we got the hardwood, and I loved it. I now use Bona that is made for hardwood floors with the Bona mop, and I’m very please with it. I think I need to get a stick vacuum because right now I use a handheld one — it’s getting too difficult the older I get! We also have hand scraped floors, and I wouldn’t want anything else!

  5. I have the dark hardwood floors and absolutely love them . I dry mop daily and I use pledge hardwood floor cleaner once a month .

  6. What eco friendly cleaner do you use?

  7. Beautiful and inspiring! Ours are dark too and throughout the house, however, they are oak so they have that orangish tone. And they’re waxed, and we haven’t cleaned and rewaxed them nearly enough. Also have beveled edges. Questions: would it be worthwhile to have them refinished and polyurethaned instead? Would a robo vacuum work on them? They’re 2.25 width, if I remember correctly.

  8. We are close to replacing floors, & dark hardwood is my favorite! I’m now leaning toward wood-look tile. Do you have any experience with that? Did you research that route at all? It’s such a permanent decision that I don’t want to screw it up!!

  9. Chrysty B. Fortner says:

    I have those exact floors. I clean them often/daily/hourly as well. So I have been using Bona hardwood cleaner and the mop thing…you’re saying I can just use a steam mop? Hmmm. I can’t seem to get their original sheen back after a battery innerd spill…they just look foggy now. Sad face. Thanks for the tips and the recommendation for the gel. Something I’ve been searching for!

  10. I have dark hardwood floors too and I agree with everything you said! Only we clean our floors about 3 times a day! I love the look, but as a designer myself I never recommend them to clients just because they always look so dirty! Of course most people don’t like to hear this, so from now on I will happily refer them to this post! Thanks for sharing your hinestexperience.

  11. Shark steam mop, huh? I have been cleaning my dark handscraped hardwood floors by hand, because I thought I couldn’t use too much “wet” on my wood floors. My problem is dog water drips showing up, and wondered if a steam mop would work better. Any cons to this process??
    Thanks!

    1. The only con is that mine has a cord- but I think it’s the older version of the one I linked. Other than that, I don’t have any complaints! What I like most about the steam mop is that it steams away the cleaning solution immediately, so the liquid doesn’t sit on the floor for very long. We keep our dog bowls on tile, but I use it to clean up the snowy/salty bootprints in our foyer and it works quickly and perfectly for that!

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