Adventures In Natural Homemaking #1: DIY Hardwood Floor Restorer

Hello! Thanks to some soap making projects over the Christmas holidays, I had a nice amount of essential oils left over (I'd purchased these oils on sale from Soap Making Resource, whose website can be found here.) 

There's only so much soap one can use and give away at a time, though, so I decided to look for alternate uses for my oils. I quickly learned that there's a seemingly endless of "recipes" that use essential oils, along with various other "ingredients", to create less toxic cleaning, health, and beauty supplies. (search "essential oil recipes" on Pinterest and you'll see what I mean).

So, here's the launch of a new blog subject, Adventures In Natural Homemaking. I have no background in chemistry, nor have I studied essential oils in depth. Thus, I don't know how effective  the concoctions I've come across on the Internet are. But I do know it's nice to use products that are better for the environment and for the health of my family. And I figure there's little to lose in trying out some of these "recipes" for myself to see how well they work.

This brings me to the hardwood floor in our dining room. It had taken a huge hit when a burst pipe on the 2nd floor unloaded gallons of water onto it a couple of years ago.  It took several days and some heavy-duty drying equipment from the restoration company to remove that water. 

Once dried, the floor never really looked quite the same again, but then again, it never looked all that great to begin with. It's not the original floor (have no idea why it had been replaced), but still deserved to look better.

I supposed sanding and refinishing would help, but I decided to try a DIY hardwood floor restorer I'd learned about here.  It looked pretty easy and I had the supplies on hand: olive oil, vinegar and essential oils (and that last ingredient is optional).

And it was easy: a light cleaning first, then the application of the homemade floor restorer solution. It was actually kind of fun to see my floor come back to life a bit:

See that nice shine? I took a "before" photo, but it didn't come out well because it was cloudy outside at the time. True, the sun was shining when I took the above "after" shot, but trust me, that's not the main reason why the floor is gleaming. This mixture did the trick! 

Since essential oil is optional is this "recipe", I figured it didn't matter which one I added. I picked patchouli due to its woodsy scent. 

I'm happy with the results of this hardwood floor restorer, and would use it again as needed!