Proper hardwood floor care is not a matter that should be ignored especially since hardwood floors do not come cheap. Taking care of them properly is a way of protecting your investment. As they are natural they are easy to refurbish with a little buffing and rubbing that is done on a regular basis.
Your first order of the day is to protect your hardwood floors by covering them up where you can. Buy a piece of Plexiglas and put on your floor to offset scratch marks made by an office chair. Cover high traffic areas that tend to get beaten down with rugs to protect your expensive hardwoods.
An essential part of hardwood floor care is to dust it with a nice fluffy dry mop created especially for that purpose that you can buy in hardware stores. You can also buy anti-static versions that pick up dust even quicker or you can spray them with something like Endust to accomplish the job quickly.
If you decide to wash your floors you should use a product that is intended to take care of wood. Just using plain old soap and water or vinegar and water can really damage a wood floor. Soap and water is especially bad for solid oak floors. It will also warp and stain laminate wood floors leaving them to look worse than if you left them dirty in the first place.
A big part of hardware floor care is prevention! To prevent having to clean your floors too often you should address spills as soon as they happen. This reduces the likelihood of the spill turning into a permanent stain.
Another way to protect your wood flooring is to put rubber stubs at the bottom of your couch legs, table legs and chair legs. This protects the end of the legs from scratching and marring the surface of the floor every time a piece of furniture is moved. If possible try to stay away from furniture that has sharp metal legs. If you do have something like a coffee table with sharp metal legs then you should consider placing a rug beneath it to protect the floor even further.
Yet another way to prevent the scratching of your floor is to instruct your children not to walk while they are wet on them. Glasses of waters or other objects that can create condensed water should also not be placed on the floor. Potted plants should always be placed on a base that can catch any spilled water when they are watered. As an added measure to your hardwood floor care program you should always insist that people only walk on them in their sock feet. This will help polish the floor and keep it shining!