The Simple Cleaning Trick That'll Bring Your Hardwood Floors Back To Life

Nothing makes a home feel instantly elegant quite like carefully chosen hardwood flooring. But to be able to make your home feel timeless and even up its market value, hardwood floors need specific care to preserve their unique beauty. While caring for hardwood floors isn't exactly rocket science, it requires a particular approach to make sure you're not damaging your flooring while you're at it. In addition to cleaning your floors regularly and correctly, as well as occasionally getting them refinished, you might also want to up your hardwood care game by buffing them with a microfiber cloth to restore their original shine and keep them in good condition for years to come.

Precisely because it's incredibly durable and versatile, hardwood flooring doesn't come cheap. In fact, equipping your home with hardwood floors can typically cost you anywhere from $2,500 to $7,000. If you've parted with a big chunk of money to install hardwood floors in your home, adding this simple hack to your standard floor care routine is a good way to protect your investment. And because hardwood floor repairs typically range from $481 to $1,704, it makes more sense to do what you can to bring old hardwood floors back to life than to spend even more money to get them fixed down the line.

Before you try this DIY alternative for buffing hardwood floors without professional equipment, you'll need to correctly prep the surface. This mostly entails cleaning the floor as you usually would — vacuuming or sweeping with a dry broom, followed by gentle mopping with a pH-neutral wood cleaner. Buffing with a microfiber cloth then comes as the final step to bring your floors to a brilliant shine.

When your floors are ready, dip a clean microfiber cloth into warm water, wring it out so that it's only slightly damp, and get to work. Applying mild pressure to the cloth, spread it over your floor in long strokes until you've tackled the entire surface. As you're gliding the cloth over the floor, the tiny fibers will pick up any cleaner residue or the last bits of invisible dirt that your mop left behind, leaving your floors with a polished, renewed shine.

For the best results, aim to revive hardwood floors with this easy method once every week in your home's busier areas. In rooms that don't see heavy foot traffic, you have a bit more leeway. In these zones, buffing with a microfiber cloth every two weeks or even just once a month is more than enough to keep your floors looking their best.