A few years ago, I shared with you how to get a leftover sticky label off a jar, (you can read that post here).
This time, it’s not a jar I needed to remove the sticky residue from, it’s our wood floor!
Although I opted for soft pine flooring for the main floor of our recently renovated house, I want lots of dings and dents and wear marks to age it, but I don’t want sticky patches!
When we put a pair of chairs in front of the fireplace, I put on those sticky felt chair pad floor protectors. In most cases that would work, except in our case it didn’t. Reason is because the floors are somewhat rustic with gaps and uneven seams between the wide planks.
When the chairs got slid around, the pads on the bottom of the feet got snagged in the cracks of the floor, eventually peeling them back so that the sticky part was facing down and the sticky residue of the pads scraped off onto the floor.
Eventually, those sticky spots got covered with dust and ash from the fireplace leaving this look:
There were several dark spots, streaks and marks all over the floor in front of the fireplace where the chairs sit.
Time to get out the cooking oil!
My mom taught me this is the best thing to remove sticky residue with. Some people use peanut butter, but I don’t care for the lingering odor of P.B. so I stick, (or should I say UN-stick) with cooking oil for my glue remover.
I simply pour out a little oil onto the rag.
A good textured terry rag like this one works best…
Then rub the residue.
To remove sticky residue on some spots, I found it best to wipe on some oil on those bad spots and let it soak in a minute before going back and rubbing it off. That seems to loosen up the surface a bit.
There’s the proof that it works!
This totally removed the stickiness and the dark color that was from dust and ash sticking to the tack of the residue.
There is the same place on the floor. All the dark sticky residue is gone.
The dents are still there, and many more to come! I want this floor to look like it’s had a history. 🙂
Last thing to do is a quick wash of the floor, to clean up the cooking oil residue, using my all time,(ALWAYS streak free!!) favorite floor cleaner, Bruce hardwood floor cleaner.
BTW: I’m not quite ready to embrace the chairs gouging the seams of the plank flooring, so the chair leg floor protectors are a different style now. No more sticky residue to peel off onto the floor! They come in many different sizes. I used the right sized round ones for our dining chairs.
They go on super slick, (as long as you order the correct size!) I quick snapped a pic of my husband putting them on one of the chairs:
This is what they look like on:
Here are several options of chair leg floor protectors that will stay put when the chairs get slid across the cracks between the floor planks.
Here are more household tips and tutorials:
Thanks so much for stopping by! Please feel free to follow and share this blog with your friends, as well as on Facebook,Pinterest, Flipboard, Bloglovin, YouTube and now Instagram! I appreciate you reading along.
This post can also be found at: Restore Restyle, Skip to my Lou, Between Naps on the Porch, A Stroll Thru Life, Yesterday on Tuesday, Cedarhill,
Donnamae says
Never thought to use cooking oil. I usually use goo gone…but the odor afterwards is a bit too much. Thanks for the idea…and a lot cheaper, too! 😉
Liz says
Happy to help Donnamae. 🙂 My mom is the one who should get the credit though… She taught me this handy tip!
Kippi says
Great idea to use cooking oil to remove sticky from the floor without harm.
Have a wonderful week,
Kippi #kippiathome
Liz says
Thanks Kippi. Yes, I love that this simple cleaning method works great but doesn’t have any harmful chemicals involved. 🙂