Before and After: A Thanksgiving Cleaning Checklist

Thanksgiving is a really busy time for most of you. There is a lot of work to be done before and after the festival. Before the festival approaches, you get busy cleaning your homes, stocking your kitchens and preparing food menus for the upcoming guests. After the festival, cleaning your home and clearing away the mess can drive anyone crazy. Well, do not panic! Here we have an easy before and after Thanksgiving Cleaning Checklist that will keep you all sorted.

The before Thanksgiving guidelines ensures that your guests are impressed with your good housekeeping skills. And the after home cleaning list helps you clear the mess, stains and dirt off your surfaces after all the guests leave. Having a list handy will help you stay organized, and then also get back to normal routine after the festival.

Before Thanksgiving Cleaning Checklist:

Here are some easy DIY cleaning tips that will help you keep your home areas spic and span before your guests start coming in. Here we have explained the basic problems with residential and commercial areas and their solutions.

FLOORS:

We have summed up all floor cleaning, repairs and maintenance in this section. If you have guests coming only for lunch or dinner, they will probably be sitting in your living room. But, if you have guests or your own family members coming for a few days, they will be using the rooms as well. Floor cleaning, repairs and maintenance needs to be done throughout the house including your foyers, patios, living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms.

Cleaning:

Things that Need your Attention:

• Superfluous and deep-rooted dense stains are a common occurrence in home flooring.
• Mold and mildew also develop on tile that are damp.
• Dirt, dust and greasy stains are also visible on foyers and patios.

What you can do:

• Begin by cleaning all the rooms one by one.
• A robust cleaner with an alkaline base is very suitable for all kinds of floor tile including ceramic, porcelain,
• cemented, concrete, brick, granite, marble, slate, quarry, etc.
• Use a cleaner with a penetrative action that can easily soak into the tile and grout surfaces and remove hidden
• traces of stains and mold from the root.
• Use a grout brush to pay special attention to grout stains and mold.

Floor Repairs:

Things that need your attention:

• During Thanksgiving, if you are expecting small children or toddlers at your place, then you must ensure that your flooring is safe and devoid of any sharp edges as kids may be walking bare-feet, which can hurt them.
• Cracks in tile and grout also look very unsightly and unmaintained.

What you can do :

• If you find your grout cracking or missing or some tile cracks, you can use a strong epoxy/resin flexible solvent-based adhesive to seal these rough edges or cracks to get a seamless and uniform looking surface.
• Use a sealer that is not very bulky in appearance, but gives a very natural look.

Floor Sealing:

Things that need your attention:

• Thorough cleaning of floor tile will ensure that the surface is deeply sanitized, but it does not guarantee that stains and mold will not occur again.
• As soon as some kid or adult spills some food or beverage on the floor, stains may occur.

What you can do:

• As we are looking for long-term solutions, so that your after Thanksgiving Cleaning work is reduced, sealing your floor tile will help tremendously.
• After cleaning, the pores of the grout and tile are open, so they must be sealed with waterproof tile and grout sealers.
• Once you have cleaned and repaired your floor tile and grout, you should color seal the grout lines first with a titanium based solvent epoxy/resin sealer and then apply a clear topical solvent-based resin sealer to the tile to create a water-proof barrier on the surface and prevent them from further stain absorption.

SHOWERS:

Showers are the most essential areas to keep clean both before and after Thanksgiving. Most people analyze your housekeeping skills by the way you keep your showers. And, you obviously want your guests to use a clean bathroom. After the festival, you will also need to clean your showers thoroughly to get your home back into routine. Here are some areas for shower cleaning you need to focus on before the festival to make it easier for you to maintain them after Thanksgiving.

Flooring and Walls Cleaning:

Things that need your attention:

• Soap scum, dirt and grease stains form on the tile, especially on the corners, making your shower look very dirty.
• Mold and mildew also form on shower tile as it is constantly damp. Mold breeds in damp areas and causes harmful eye infections and respiratory issues. Mold and mildew also give out a bad stench.
• Acidic cleaners and spills from shampoos and lotions cause etching on shower tile.

What you need to do:

• The best solution to clean floors and walls of a shower is to use a deep-penetrative and robust cleaner that is gentle on the surface and yet tough on the stains.
• You can use the same deep penetrating cleaner that we have suggested for floor cleaning in the rest of the house, but if you have installed cultured marble in your shower, then you need to clean it with a cultured-marble-friendly cleaner.
• It should not be acidic, as it may lead to etching marks.

Caulking:

Things that need your attention:

• If your old shower caulk has begun to peel or crack, you obviously might be thinking of re-caulking, but re-caulking is again a temporary fix that will again peel or crack in some time.
• Deteriorated caulk turns blackish in a few months and also gives birth to mold in its crevices.

What you need to do:

• Instead of caulking, go for a permanent solution with a better caulk substitute.
• Use a pigmented solvent-based flexible epoxy/resin sealer on the shower corners that can be shaded in many colors and does not pop off from the surface.
• You can use the same sealer that you are using for sealing cracks in tile and grout.

Cracked Tile and Grout Repair:

Things that need your attention:

• Shower tile grout may also crack or go missing in some places.
• These cracks and crevices accumulate water and lead to further mold breeding.
• These cracks are also rough and may hurt anyone walking barefoot on them.

What you need to do:

Use the same epoxy/resin adhesive that you used to repair cracks in the grout and tile for other floors of the house.

Efflorescence:

Things that need your attention:

• Efflorescence is a mixture of mineral salts, cement and water coming out from the drains or from the tile gaps in a shower. This arises due to improper tile installation procedures and the slurry grows and travels to the top of the flooring, leaving a nasty residue.
• The deposits may clog your drain or even crack your tile and grout.

What you need to do:

• Do not use a sharp tool to scrape the efflorescence off as it may lead to scratches on the surface.
• You get special chemicals on the market to remove efflorescence. Make sure these chemicals eliminate all the efflorescence at the root without damaging the surface.

Shower Tile and Grout Sealing:

Things that need your attention:

• After shower tile and grout cleaning and repairing, the surface is still quite vulnerable to stains and mold occurrences.
• With the next use, the shower tile and grout will get wet again and again cause mold and stains.

What you can do:

• The best way to prevent mold and stain occurrences in a shower is to seal the grout using a titanium pigmented solvent based sealer and the tile with a clear topical resin sealer, making the surface water-proof and resistant to stains and mold.
• You can use the same sealers that we have suggested for floors above to seal the floor tile in the rest of the house.

Shower Glass Door Cleaning:

Things that need your attention:

• Shower glass doors get stained with hard water dots or soap scum after every use.
• The hard water stains are visible in areas that get hard water in their taps.
• These glass surfaces also get etched on using acidic cleaners.

What you need to do:

• Shower glass doors should be cleaned with proper glass-approved cleaners that easily remove all kinds of hard water stains, dirt, dust and etching marks.
• The cleaner should be non-acidic.

Shower Glass Door Sealing:

Things that need your attention:

• Cleaning may help you remove all the stains, but it does not guarantee that the stains will not form again.
• With the next use, again your glass surface will get stained again.

What you can do:

• It is best to seal shower glass doors with glass sealers that form a water-proof layer on the surface.
• Sealing before Thanksgiving, will make your After Thanksgiving cleaning much easier.

In the same way, you need to clean and seal your natural stone countertops also. Use a cleaner to remove all kinds of oil and dirt stains and then seal the surface with epoxy/resin sealers to make them water-resistant. This Thanksgiving Cleaning Checklist will make your work easier home maintenance.

After Thanksgiving Checklist:

The good news is that your after thanksgiving checklist will be too small. All you need to do is to clean the areas like floors, counters and showers with quality maintenance cleaners, as they have been deep-cleaned, repaired and sealed.

• After Thanksgiving, when the guests leave, you can just use a good shower and floor maintenance cleaner to wipe off the superficial dirt and stains that occur on the surface.
• You can just maintain your glass doors After Thanksgiving with Glass maintenance cleaners that are unique combinations of cleaners and sealers and keep the sealant intact.
• Such maintenance cleaners are combinations of cleaners and sealers that keep the top sealant coat intact and also keep the surface clean. Just use it once a week to keep your floor, shower and countertops sanitized.

You can try using pFOkUS products for cleaning, repairing and sealing your floors, showers and countertops. If you feel these procedures are too taxing for you, you can hire experts from D’Sapone for your commercial and residential restoration services.