Monday 14 November 2011

Hardwood Flooring: How to Keep Wood Floors in Top Shape

If properly maintained, hardwood floors can beautify a home for decades, adding warmth, character and value to your house. When neglected, however, wood flooring can deteriorate and quickly begin looking shabby. In order to get the most possible life out of your flooring, and to preserve it for generations to come, apply the following techniques for proper care and maintenance.

Clean Up Spills Right Away

Lingering spills can cause damage to your wood flooring. To protect your floor, clean up spills right away using a dry cloth. Avoid pushing down as you soak up spilled liquid; the pressure will only make the stain enter deeper into the wood grain. Rinse out your cloth often, and wring it out well before returning to the spill zone. After you're done, dry off the area completely with another clean cloth. Repeat this process if any sticky residue remains.

Lastly, if these techniques are not working for certain stubborn stains, call a hardwood flooring contractor who will know the best ways to remove blemishes without harming your flooring.

Place Rugs Purposefully

Every hardwood flooring contractor suggests shielding your flooring by putting rugs at entrances and in high- traffic areas. Interior and exterior rugs capture dirt before it can scratch your wood flooring.

Religiously Apply Furniture Protectors

Felt furniture pads protect your hardwood floors by preventing scratches. A wood floor may be refinished to remove scratches, but this is an expensive, time-consuming procedure best entrusted to a professional hardwood flooring contractor. The more diligent you are about applying felt protectors to your furniture, the fewer scratches your wood flooring will sustain.

Sweep Consistently

Sweep wood flooring every other day to remove dust, dirt and other debris. Unless you have dust allergies, a broom is the best choice since it won't scratch your floors. If you do suffer from allergies, suck up dirt with the soft-bristle attachment on your vacuum cleaner; this will reduce the amount of allergens that are kicked up, and it minimizes the chance that vacuum wheels will cause scratches.

Prevent Water Damage

Because water is one of wood flooring's worst enemies - it can cause the wood to warp as well as stain - it's important not to wet mop your wood floors, no matter how much you may be tempted. When in doubt, always follow the manufacturer's recommendations. For example, laminate flooring can be designed to look like hardwood floors; sellers of laminate flooring typically do not recommend cleaning with water. If you come across a particularly hard-to-clean stain, check with a hardwood flooring contractor for safe cleaning methods that won't blemish your hardwood floors.

Tuesday 1 November 2011

Kegel8 Reviews-the Popular Pelvic Floor Toner

A quick internet search reveals a number of Kegel8 reviews and it is fair to say that most of the comments about these popular pelvic floor toners are very complementary towards this particular product range. Kegel8 was devised by a physiotherapist with the aim of providing a satisfactory and workable solution for the common problem of weakened pelvic floor muscles following childbirth or simply due to the aging process.

Until recently, women were always advised to do their "kegel exercises" after giving birth. These consisted of a set of repetitive "squeeze and release" exercises performed by the vaginal muscles.

Now, those of us who have given birth can appreciate just how difficult this can be - on many levels.

Firstly, when you have had a baby, your vaginal muscles feel extremely slack. Indeed, I couldn't tell if I was squeezing or releasing as I seemed to have no muscular tone at all. As the muscle fibres began to repair themselves and some kind of feeling returned, I was just too busy looking after my baby to remember to perform exercises which, in my mind, had little effect. Pelvic floor toners are therefore seen, by many, as an easy answer.

There are a number of Kegel8 reviews to be found at various locations around the internet and it has to be said that the vast majority are very positive indeed, with many women reporting that this range of pelvic floor toners has literally changed their lives, freeing them from embarrassing and inconvenient incontinence and enhancing their sex lives. Indeed, Kegel 8 is used by physiotherapists within the NHS and this in itself provides a degree of "authority" to the claims made by the manufacturers.

There are 2 units in the range-the Tight and Tone and the Ultra. Kegel8 reviews often refer to the range rather than pointing out the differences between the two models. In some ways, this is fine as the differences are subtle and relate mainly to the number of programmes offered (the Ultra has 14 and the Tight and Tone, 9) and the appearance of the handheld units. The probes are interchangeable and both devices come with the option of a standard sized probe or a wider one, which is suitable for toning up particularly slack muscles. One of the additional programmes available on the Ultra is an anal programme and you therefore also have the option of this type of specialised probe should this be a requirement.

In a number of Kegel8 reviews, it is reported that some women started off with the standard Kegel8 Tight and Tone version and progressed to the Ultra, thereby buying two pelvic floor toners. Whether the additional programmes justify this additional expense is, in my mind, questionable and I feel that for the extra few pounds, it may be worth getting hold of the Kegel8 Ultra to start with.