Waxing the Floor

Sundown comes early these days. While cleaning this weekend, I ended up vacuuming the hall under lightbulbs instead of during the sunshiny hours. The direction of the light showed me something I haven't noticed before. The hall carpet really needs a good shampooing. (Okay, everybody say "Booooo! Hissssss!" with me.) What's interesting is noticing the pattern of dirt and clean along the hall floor.

Don Aslett says you only put one thin coat of wax around the edges of the floor. Put the multi-layers in the middle of the room, where you're walking all the time, spilling, smudging, dropping things, and generally wearing out the floor. You should almost never put wax near the baseboards or in the corners.

Interestingly, there has been no traffic on the 8" next to the walls on either side of the hallway. The path into the rooms shows a 6" edge of clean carpet near the door hinges, but only a 3" edge of clean carpet on the side where the doorknob is. That should give me a good guideline for other floors in the house.