The kitchen floor really needed a good stripping and scrubbing, so today I got out the "big gun" -- my 1950s-60s (not sure exactly how old it is) commercial 13" Mercury Bulldog floor buffer (that I found at a yard sale for ten bucks!).

It weighs about 80-90 pounds. It's so heavy that I can't carry it by myself! But all that heft really makes quick work of stripping old wax and cleaning the wood surface with a black stripping pad using Johnson's liquid "Beautiflor" wax.

Then I do a first polishing with the natural bristle-brush when the wax is dry. Then I buff with a white super gloss pad, and then a final go-over with my Electrolux 3-brush electric polisher using the lambs-wool pads. That final pass with the Electrolux really brings the most gleam out from the wax.

Notice Madame Pepperoni supervising in the third photo -- "You missed a spot right here!"

"A Good Time Was Had By All."

P.S.: The black spot in the middle of the kitchen floor was there when we moved in. It was caused when the wood floors were refinished and the person doing the job burned the floor with his machine.

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No, Beautiflor has not been made for many years. I have a pretty good supply of it stocked up, and whenever I come across some I grab it up. It's great stuff, and the scent is incredibly heavenly. Takes me right back to when I was four years old and Mama was doing her wood floors with her Electrolux polisher attachment and Beautiflor wax. No wax smells better! Especially the next day, when the "solvent note" of the wax has dissipated and you're left with just the aroma of the carnuba wax. I'm telling you, it's pure heaven!!

I live in a fourplex built in 1937. That's the same year of construction as the building (also a fourplex) that my former apartment was in. The floors here are gorgeous.

Unless you were wending your way through residential neighborhoods, I doubt if you saw our building. The street I live on is only, hmm, about seven blocks long, cut off on the west end by Redondo Avenue and on the east end by Vineyard Avenue.

Here's a photo of the building. Yes, it really is that color!

Right, but that's paste wax which in theory does give a harder and more durable finish than liquid wax, but it's also much harder to use as it has to be applied on your hands and knees with a rag. My middle-aged knees would throb in protest if I tried to spend that much time kneeling down on a hardwood floor!

Beautiflor is a liquid wax that is much easier to use - you just pour little "dabs" onto the floor and work them into the wood with the polisher.

The first gray and white Electrolux B7 polisher came with a special set of brushes onto which, according to the instruction manual, paste wax could be applied with a butter knife. I tried that once and all it did was pretty much make a mess: The paste wax got smeared around onto a small area of the floor and it took forrrrrrever to work it all out.

One idea I just came across somewhere, don't remember where now offhand, was that paste wax could be melted by immersing the can in a pan of hot water until it's liquid enough to pour. I'm interested enough in this technique that the next time I do my floors I'm going to try it.

I use paste wax on my wood floors but I let the Oreck Orbiter do the work.  I spread a couple dabs of wax on the white scrubbing/buffing pad with a putty knife, set the Orbiter on the pad and away I go.  The pad picks up the dirt and leaves an even coating of wax on the floor with no smearing.  After an hour I go over the floor again with the wool bonnet installed for the final "finish."  One scrubbing/buffing pad is good for doing the whole house and it cleans up easily by flooding with boiling water.