Leaves are falling, the days are getting shorter, and football games are hitting the airwaves so they can be watched on your television, phone, computer, or tablet. When the gang comes over to watch, the munchies come out, and as the excitement rises, the crumbs get ground into the rug, dropped on the hardwood, or if the replays take place in the living room instead of on the field, things might get broken. How do you take care of your floors during football season?
Tip #1: Buy Stain Resistant Carpet
Today’s technology is providing companies with an abundant number of ways to produce carpet fibers that are stain resistant, for example Mohawk has a process called Smart Strand, which is pet resistant. While no carpet is totally stain proof, special chemical coatings make them repel fluids and dirt.
Beer and potato chips, buffalo dip and chicken taquitos, all of the season’s yummiest game-watching nibbles can turn into a horrible mess, yet be cleaned with relative ease with stain resistant carpeting. Just make sure to clean up any spills quickly and wash them with soap and water. Don’t use harsh chemicals to clean spills, as they will remove the protective agents.
So, relax, and bring on the pigskin. With stain resistant carpeting you are ready. Here is a Buffalo Dip from Taste of Home to get you started.
Tip #2: Wood Floor Cleaning
Like carpeting, wood doesn’t like dirt and liquids. Liquids can cause extensive damage to wood, engineered hardwood, and laminate. Fine wood floors will buckle after being soaked with water, and laminate can disintegrate. While wood floors might be saved, laminate can only get wet on the top.
Floorte from Shaw produces Repel laminate water-resistant laminate flooring, but here are a few tips from Shaw on how to keep your wood floors top notch:
* Do not use steam cleaners or wet mops, which may cause irreparable damage to your floor.
*Use a damp cloth to blot up spills as soon as they happen. Never allow liquids to stand on your floor.
*Sweep, dust, or vacuum the floor regularly with the hard floor attachment (not the beater bar) to prevent accumulation of dirt and grit that can scratch or dull the floor finish.
*Periodically clean the floor with cleaning products made specifically for laminate floor care.
*Do not wash or wet mop the floor with soap, water, oil-soap detergent or any other liquid cleaning product. This could cause swelling, warping, laminate splitting, and joint-line separation, and void the warranty.
*Avoid using steel wool, abrasive cleaners, or strong ammoniated or chlorinated type cleaners.
Learn more about picking wood floors by reading Designer’s Secret Guide to Choosing Wood Flooring.
Tip #3: If You Can’t Beat ‘Um
Of course, you can always turn a room into a Man Cave with a special football floor. Not sure what we mean? Check out Pinterest.
Still want your floor to be high quality? Look into using luxury vinyl flooring. Those game day spills will be nothing, and if the game starts to take over the room, no problem. The floor can take the punishment. And the goal lines will be drawn.
Any Way You Go is A Touchdown
Carpet, wood, or luxury vinyl, no matter what flooring you have beneath the feet of your cheering section, you have it taken care of. So relax and pass the remote.
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