Marble Maintenance

Marble is a very beautiful and unique natural stone. Whether it is in the kitchen, bath, or throughout your home, it can be a challenge to clean. If you do not sweep or vacuum your floors dust and dirt can and will leave scratches. So sweep and vacuum as often as you can. To clean or wash your marble never use an acidic cleaner. The best thing is a little mild dish soap in warm water. The key is to always rinse your mop in between strokes; you don’t want to push dirt from one side to the other. After mopping always dry the marble never let it air dry. Marble is such a porous stone that even water can leave spots.

Whether you like the mirror shine or a matte finish, you will need to have a professional come and polish the marble by using a diamond abrasive compound to smooth it down and bring back the finish that you desire.

The important thing is to recognize what kind of stone you have and perform the correct type of maintenance regularly. For more information, we recommend reading this guide to ultimate marble restoration and repair. This article goes into more detail regarding the different types of restoration that will work on marble as well as a few other things to keep your marble in top condition. 

Choosing What Kind of Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood floors

Choosing what type of wood floors best suit your home is an important decision. The 3 main types of hardwood floors are solid wood – engineered wood – acrylic impregnated flooring. When choosing your flooring you should keep in mind that solid hardwoods may require more upkeep than engineered wood flooring, but they can be re-sand and refinished.

Solid wood flooring comes in unfinished and pre-finished. The difference between these two is that unfinished floors need to be installed, sanded, stained, and sealed. Pre-finished wood floors just have to be installed; they have been finished at the factory. Three main types:

Solid wood:

            Strip flooring – has a set width, from 1 ½, 2, and 2 ¼ inches

            Plank flooring – comes in 2 thicknesses, but is available in widths from 3 to 8 inches

            Parquet flooring – made up of geometrical patterns composed of individual wood slats

Engineered wood flooring is produced by adhering layers of plastic laminate veneer with real wood. (You should not confuse engineered wood flooring with laminate flooring; there is no actual wood in laminate flooring.)

Acrylic-impregnated wood flooring is infused with color and sealant throughout the thickness of the wood, so the finish is actually all the way through the wood. (Mostly used commercially)

Hardwood Flooring Part 1

Hardwood Flooring

Part 1

Choosing to have new flooring is a big decision, on that, you need to be well informed. Should I go with real wood or laminate? If you are not sure you need to educate yourself, find out what the difference is.

Laminate floor is made of a high-density fiberboard core, placed between a melamine laminate backing and a high-quality photographic paper. The image can range from wood, stone, or any other natural flooring. There are a few hybrid products that replace photographic paper with a very thin piece of real wood veneer.

There are benefits and drawbacks to both hardwood and laminate flooring: hardwood floors can be scratched, but scratches can be repaired. If laminate floors get scratched, it’s not very easy to repair. A hardwood floor can be sanded to remove any imperfections; you can not do this with a laminate floor. One benefit to laminate floors is that they do not fade or turn yellow from sunlight. Most stained wood floors will change color over time. On the other hand, wood floors can be restored to their original beauty. Laminate floors never need to be waxed or polished, they also hold up better in a kitchen or bathroom, whereas hardwood floors do not do well in rooms with a lot of moisture.

Ultimately, the decision is yours whether you go with hardwood or laminate flooring; you need to examine what is best for you, your family, and for your home.

Carpet Beetles

Carpet Beetle

Just when we took all the precautions for bed bugs a new indoor bug comes into the lime light... the carpet beetle also known as the flour or furniture beetle. These rather tiny beetles come in different shapes, colors and very in sizes.

These beetles will eat just about anything organic. For example, these bugs will eat in to your carpet, furniture, lint, hair, clothes, blankets, pet food, animal nests, leather, pollen from flowers, flour, grains and many more materials.

What do you need to do to get rid of these bugs?

• Go through your pantry and check flour and grains
• Check closets, drawers, storage boxes
• Check under carpets and area rugs
• Check your couches and chairs

Thoroughly vacuum your home and wash all bed linens and clothing in hot soapy water. The next step is to have your carpet professionally steam cleaned; make sure you get a deep steam cleaning. It is sometimes useful to treat infested areas with insecticides to eliminate residual populations of carpet beetles. In nonfood areas household formulation of various pyrethroid insecticides can be used. Numerous products allow such use and contain as the active ingredient permethrin, bifenthrin, deltamethrin, tralomethrin and realted compounds. Use according to label directions and pay particular attention to treating baseboards, corners, edges of carpeting and other areas where lint and other debris accumulates that is fed on by carpet beetles. To keep them from coming back, make sure there is no hair and dust floating through your home. Thus you must keep up a cleaning regiment: vacuum often (at least 2 times a week), keep all flour products and grains in air tight containers. If you follow these steps, you should get rid of them and stay rid of them.

Carpet Steam Cleaning

At the end of the day, there are certain things we tend to push off. Unfortunately, carpet cleaning seems to be one of those things. However, all is not lost when you have the right team at your disposal. Check out this video where we turned this old carpet into like-new.

Cleaning Dark Water Spots on Hardwood Floors

Dark water spots are a nuisance. Between professional cleanings or other hardwood treatments, it's worth knowing how to manage dark water spots on your hardwood floors. 

Clean spot and surrounding area with No. 2 steel wool and a wood floor cleaner or mineral spirits. Thoroughly wash the spotted area with household vinegar. Allow it to remain for three to four minutes. If the spot remains, sand with fine sandpaper, follow the grain pattern of the wood, feathering out 3 to 4 inches into the surrounding area, re-wax, and polish. If two repeated applications of vinegar do not remove the spot, apply the oxalic acid solution directly on the spot. Proportions are one ounce oxalic acid to one-quart water or a fraction thereof.

**Use recommended cleaner and buff vigorously with a clean towel. Refinishing might be necessary

Carpet Cleaning

The first rule and most important rule to keep your carpet clean is to vacuum at least twice a week. Check out our website for a complete list of things you can do between services to keep your carpet clean.