A week of floor sanding & soap treatment

This week has been a never ending week of floor sanding and floor treatment. I honestly do not know how we have managed to turn our somewhat ready house into a complete renovation mess (once again!).

Many of you have followed along on our sanding process so I thought I’d share how I treated our reclaimed maple (lönn) floors. Maple floors are amazing but they are also incredible hard to treat. Why? Because it is a light-coloured hardwood rather than softwood which has a light grain, so it turns into yellow under the constant exposure of light which can lead to a dual-tone and uneven patches. But fear not, there are many things you can do to achieve that white wash look!

Soap scrubbed floors are an old traditional Scandinavian way of treating wooden floors. If done properly it can be both resistant, easy to maintain and a very cheap and environmentally friendly way of treating your floors. The result will be a bright, warm and natural floor that feels soft under your feet.

To treat my floors I used the following products:

• Auro white floor soap
• Byggfabrikens linseed oil soap
• Gloves
• Linen cloth
• Two stiff cleaning brushes

Start off by swabbing the floor with cold water. This is important as if you use warm water there is a risk that the treatment can turn out greyer.

Once the floor is wetted start with the white floor soap. Scrub the white soap treatment into the floor with your cleaning brush along the grain, make sure that there’s not any pools of water. Scrub, Scrub, Scrub!  The floor should be saturated with the soap that will dry in.

Once done, leave to “soak in” for 15 mins and then remove any puddles or access.

After the floors has completely dried redo the process until you’re happy with the colouring. I applied the white floor soap three times before moving on to do the last wash with the linseed soap. After the last treatment which should be the linseed soap one, swab the floor with cold water again. The soaked soap forms a solid gel layer in the surface texture of the wood. When mopping the floors with cold water, the floor gives off a small portion of the soap which acts as a detergent. This treatment lasts a year depending on wear and tear, but as a rule of thumb when you clean your floors just clean it with the linseed soap wash. Gradually it’ll build up a layer of protection.

Et voila! A traditional Scandinavian soaped floor à la Scotland! Happy Saturday my friends!

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