Cleaning your living room: “Wow!” or “Oh, my!”

Hello everyone:

Many years ago, I had the chance to visit the daughter of some friends. I went into the living room and discovered that the entire house was coated in plastic sheets, from the rug to the end tables to the sofas and chairs.

That is not a good way to live, although cleaning the place was a breeze because all she needed to do was dust off the plastic.

When my grandmother became a widow, she stopped taking the blankets off of her fine living room furniture (she kept things covered when grandkids were visiting but removed them when she and Grandpa were alone in the house). She was put in a nursing home about 20 years after her husband died; when we removed the blankets, we saw that the fabric had completely disintegrated. It was sad that no one ever got to see the beautiful fabric; all we saw was some old wool blankets over all her furniture.

I once knew a single fellow who had hardwood floors throughout the downstairs of his house. I went over to help him with some remodeling and noticed that his floors were in dire need of mopping.

Now I was raised in Florida, where we had terrazzo floors or carpeting throughout our homes, so this was my first exposure to hardwood. I suggested we get out a mop and bucket; he went nuts.

He told me that you wouldn’t use water on your furniture, which is made of wood, so you shouldn’t use it on your hardwood floors. He wanted me to use furniture polish, which I did. It took a whole can of polish to clean those floors.

Here is my older-but-much-wiser advice on this topic:  Do not try to clean your wooden floor with furniture polish!!!!!!!!  It does not lead to happiness (or cleanliness). It leads to falling down and floors that are still dirty, even though they may be shiny.

Do you have any tales of woe about cleaning? I would love to hear your story!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

 

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