How to clean every floor surface in your home

9honey Living’s The Wash Up: Your 30-day spring cleaning guide is a month-long series aimed at making your annual house clean easier with hacks and expert advice.
You walk across them multiple times a day tracking dust and dirt all over them again and again as you pass from room to room.
But while areas like the kitchen bench get daily attention, floors often miss out on the same level of care, ending up vacuumed and mopped once a week at most.
Whether it be tiles, wooden floorboards or carpet, cleaning floors is a necessary yet time-consuming task – which makes doing it right that much more important.
READ MORE: The easiest way to clean dust, dirt and mould from ceilings and walls
So here’s everything you need to know about how to clean your living room floors, what you should use and some key hacks to get them shining like new.
Wooden floorboards tend to collect everything from dust to mud and animal hair. 
While a regular vacuum to get rid of any grime and stains is important, you will need to give the floorboards a good wash every once in a while. 
Same as with any flooring surface, the first thing you’ll want to do is remove any rugs and move furniture for a clear space.
Then it’s time to get out the vacuum or broom to sweep up all the dirt.
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To wash the floors you can use a homemade cleaning solution of water and castile soap or store-bought floor cleaner. Take a damp mop and a bucket or a cloth to clean the surface.
Make sure to empty and refill the water in the bucket when it turns murky. Then leave the floors to dry.
There are some products you should avoid on your wood floors including bleach and vinegar as they can cause damage and dull them.
To give your carpet a deep clean, you’ll need a good vacuum.
While vacuuming might seem like an easy enough task, there’s some hacks that can make the job a bit easier – and more effective – for thicker carpets and rugs.
Janitor Brandon Pleshek recommends vacuuming in a 360 pattern because “you’re moving the fibres around, unlocking any deeply embedded dirt and hair”.
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While pet hair and dirt is pretty easy to clean up, carpet stains can be more of a task.
Use a cloth and a cleaning solution made of water and either dishwashing liquid or vinegar to dab at the stain gently.
For tougher stains you can try a DIY cleaner that CHOICE found to be more effective than some store bought carpet stain removers in their testing. It costs 55 cents to make and requires things you already have at home.
To make the stain remover combine two tablespoons of dishwashing liquid, three tablespoons of white vinegar and a quarter cup of water.
“Work the mixture into the stain, being careful not to over-wet the carpet. Blot the area clean with a towel,” CHOICE said.
This stain remover has been tested on red wine, sauce, oil, dirt and coffee.
To clean tile surfaces you’ll want to grab a cloth and a cleaning solution, which you can make yourself using dishwashing liquid and warm water.
The easiest process for spot cleaning is to pop the solution in a spray bottle and dampen the cloth to clean the surface of any grime. For bigger areas you can use a mop and bucket of water.
If you’ve washed your titles and they’re still appearing a different colour after building up layers of dirt, cleaner Donna Mendoza recommended a process with a scrubbing broom.
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She scrubbed the tiles with a broom and Mr Clean surface cleanser before switching to a spin mop to wash the floor. This method removed layers of grime that a mop just couldn’t break up.
For deeper stains, try mixing some baking soda and water and let it sit for around 10 minutes before wiping off. Leave on for longer if the stain persists.
Another part of tile flooring that requires special treatment is the grout.
Regular grout cleaning can be done with a grout brush or toothbrush and dishwashing liquid but for a deep clean try adding some bicarb soda and hydrogen peroxide to remove grime, mould and discolouration.
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