This is Day 38 of the Green in 365 series!

We’re dedicating one day for each room to talk about green and natural cleaning. Since the actual cleaning in the dining room is not much different then the living room, I wanted to tell you about another all-natural cleaning trick, cleaning your wood floors with tea.

I first heard about this method and used it at our old house, where we put in new wood floors that were promptly scratched all up by our two Labrador Retrievers. When we went to put our house up for sale, I wanted to make the floors look nice again, without having to refinish them.

I read about this method in the book How The Queen Cleans Everything and decided to give it a try. The results were fantastic, and I’ve been using tea to periodically clean our wood floors, that cover our entire floor here at our new house, since we moved in almost 4 years ago.

Cleaning Wood Floors with Tea

You want to make sure that your floor is relatively clean before you clean with them with tea. Definitely sweep up any crumbs, and if your floor is dirty, you probably want to mop it with a homemade cleaning solution first.

While your getting the floor ready, place 3-5 black tea bags in about 1 – 1/2 quarts of water, and bring to a boil. Let the tea bags steep until the tea cools down to room temperature.

Use a soft cloth dipped in the tea to clean the floor. Be sure to wring the cloth out, you just want it to be damp, not soaking wet. The tannic acid in the tea helps to smooth over scratches and brings out the natural grain and shine of the wood floors.

I’ve also read that some people put the tea into a spray bottle and use it that way to mop the floors. I usually get down on my hands and knees and do it the old fashioned way, but you can figure out what works best for you. I try to clean our wood floors with tea a couple times a year. Our floors are not in the best shape, but I do feel like cleaning them with tea helps them to look nicer, until we have the funds to refinish them.

If you have wood floors in your dining room, or anywhere in your home, try cleaning them with tea and let me know what you think!

Have you cleaned your wood floors with tea before?

Find all the Green in 365 posts.

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