Watch this video and learn how to quickly deal with cat or dog urine before it damages your hardwood floor. Read more

Watch this video for some helpful tips on keeping your hardwood floors in good condition. Read more

With today’s advancements in wood flooring stains and finishes, cleaning wood floors has become much less of an arduous process. Regular maintenance requires little more than sweeping with a soft bristle broom and vacuuming with a soft floor attachment (if the floor has a beveled edge that could collect debris). To minimize maintenance and maintain the beauty of your wood floors, consider the following preventive maintenance tips:

• Don’t use sheet vinyl or tile floor care products on wood floors. Self-polishing acrylic waxes can cause wood to become slippery and appear dull.
• Use throw rugs inside and outside doorways to help prevent grit, dirt and other debris from being tracked onto your wood floors.

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Green flooring can be a great option for your home, but before you make a final decision, you should evaluate if you really need new flooring in the first place. Generally, the most sustainable approach to flooring is to use what you already have. Removing and throwing away old flooring creates more landfill waste, and the manufacturing process of new flooring creates greenhouse gasses. Find out if your flooring can be renewed with a deep cleaning, sanding or polishing. If not, see if the wood flooring underneath can be sanded and polished.

If you decide to purchase Green flooring, be sure to choose a product that best fits your lifestyle and budget. Here are the most common types of sustainable flooring:

Concrete
Concrete can be stained, Read more

When my black Labrador got up in years, she would occasionally have accidents inside the house on the wall-to-wall carpeting. Don’t procrastinate when your pet accidentally urinates on your carpets. According to Matt Cole, owner of Cole’s Carpet and Upholstery, a Diamond Certified company, the crystals in the urine can create an alkaline stain, which can give off a bad odor, discolor your carpets and even damage your hardwood floors.

So here’s what to do. Mr. Cole says you blot up the urine contamination with a wet terry cloth towel until all the yellow comes up. You don’t want it to spread further, so remember to blot, not rub the area. You can also use paper towels for blotting. Read more

Most of us postpone getting our hardwood floors re-finished because we dread the mess. The talcum-like dust from the sanding process is not only difficult to clean up, but a health hazard too. Wood dust is a known carcinogen, and people with asthma, respiratory problems, and expectant mothers are warned to limit their exposure to it.

Scott Miller, Operations Manager for Elegant Floors, a Diamond Certified company, reports that the dust problem caused by sanding floors can now be almost completely eliminated with dust extraction systems.  The Bona Atomic DCS trailer extracts about 98% of the dust through powerful hoses  from the sanding equipment and out the front door to the powerful dust collector to a large truck.  Read more