dream home (except the floors)

[smush]

Hi everyone, I thought I'd sign up here and ask a question because I've found myself in a strange little dilemma. My husband and I just took the plunge and bought our dream home. Well, "dream" except in one respect: all the floors are tile.

Every place I've ever lived has had tile only in the kitchen and bathrooms. Now it's the entire house. We said we would just install carpeting, but considering that we just put a down payment on the house, we can't realistically afford to install carpeting for another year or so.

Surprisingly, it's been kind of nice, in that the house seems cooler in the summertime than it would probably be if there were carpets everywhere. But I just don't know, because of my inexperience, what's the best way to maintain so much tile. Any cleaning tips? maintenance tips? home ownership tips? It's all so new. We're walking around in the evenings and saying "Wow! We *own* this! It belongs to us!"

Well, thanks in advance for any input you might have. I've looked around the site a bit and it seems like such a nice community, especially for when we finally have kids. It's wonderful to meet you.

Nanci

[Sydneyp]

Tile all over is the norm here. I like not having carpeting to clean (who can ever really get a carpet clean?)

I like to use a floor squeegee (probably easy enough to get at your local DIY hardware store.) I swab the floor with the mop, laying down lots of water, then squeegee the water either out the door or into one area where I mop it up. I only go through that when I want a deep clean - the rest of the time I just mop.

Congratulations on your new house.

[Csara]

Congratulations on your new home! All tile is the norm here too and I like it that way. Personally, carpet adds to my allergies and like Sydney said, it's so hard to get really clean. As for cleaning tile, I vacuum or sweep and then use my swiffer wet jet. When in need of a deep cleaning, I bring out the mop.

[mabbit]

Congrats on the house! My aunt has lots of tile and as soon as the Scooba came out she ran out and bought one because she hated mopping so badly. But she also says she wouldn't trade all her tile for carpet now, because a carpet is like a big dirty napkin -- you'll never get it totally clean. And tile is better for keeping cool in the summer, too. Maybe a year from now you guys won't even want to get rid of all that tile!