Miscellany: My mopping technique

There's a thousand ways to clean a tile floor (you can even buy a robot to do it for you), but I've settled upon a particular procedure taught to me by my parents.

1. Vacuum the floor. This is pretty important, otherwise you'll be pushing around wet crumbs and hair all around the floor with your wet mop.

2. Sweep the floor. The vacuum probably missed the bits inside the grout. A proper Asian-style broom will get most of this debris out (you can buy one at any Chinese grocery store - the American brooms are better for outside jobs, but the Asian brooms are aces for inside).

3. Vacuum again, this time with a handheld vacuum. I hate using dustpans, so I usually just sweep up the debris into piles and suck 'em up with a Dust Buster. The more voltage on your cordless vac, the better.

4. Time to prep the soapy wash. Add in enough floor cleaner (yeah, we use Pine Sol) to fill the top of the water with suds, and then slop this all over the floor with a twisty-mop. A good twist-up mop is worth its weight in gold here.

5. Start mopping. Press down with the mop and scrub as best you can. I tend to use a fresh batch of hot water every time I notice the mop bucket getting soapy with stuff picked up from the floor. It will take at least two, and perhaps three or more complete passes to get most of the soap off the floor.

6. Dry. I turn the air conditioning to a cold setting, turn on the ceiling fans, and watch a movie.

If all these steps are executed right, the floor will be clean enough to eat off of...

For a day or two.