In this blog, we take you on a guide to thoroughly cleaning an ordinary bathroom in a Swedish villa with plastic carpet both on the floor and the walls. By using simple means such as soap, a brush and warm water, we remove the dirt in depth from the carpet. In addition, we share tips for cleaning other bathroom accessories such as the toilet, shower curtains and floor drains.

 

Last edited on May 8, 2024

 

 

In this blog, we will guide you in major cleaning of bathrooms and a bathroom with plastic carpet, wet room carpet both on floor and walls.

 

This is what the bathroom looks like before we start. A completely ordinary bathroom for a family with children.

 

Above you see the starting position. A completely ordinary bathroom in an ordinary Swedish villa built in the 1980s with plastic carpet both on the floor and the walls. The bathroom is used by a family with several children who, like everyone else, have too little time for cleaning. We will help them with a big city and you can follow along here step by step.

 

Barum mat in plastic wet room mat, how to deep clean it

 

This is what the bathroom rug looks like at a closer look. As you can see, the carpet has a structure. It is good that it makes the carpet less slippery when it gets wet, but dirt also settles in the structure. From the manufacturers and craftsmen side it is recommended to wipe / mop plastic mats at least once a week to keep them clean but honestly.... not everyone does it, there may not be time to ALWAYS mop once a week and then dirt gets stuck in the structure. Then it is NOT possible to mop away the dirt anymore. We will instead remove it with a regular scrubbing brush and soap.

Soap with an excess of fat and a high pH value will easily dissolve the dirt in the texture of the carpet. The basic part in the soap takes all the dirt that comes from the plant or animal kingdom - that's most of it, what comes from ourselves or what we bring in with us.

The fat in the soap will dissolve all parts of the dirt that are just greasy - all according to the principle: equal dissolves equal!

 

This is what you need to scrub the dirt off a bathroom rug, wet room rug

 

Here we use our own bathroom soap , a soft scrubbing brush and an eco-fibre cloth . Warm water in a small amount and soap - then it's actually just a matter of scrubbing your knees. Scrub carefully in corners and joints and over everything where the dirt is in the carpet. Note that joints between carpet and carpet, wet room carpet and floor carpet often have traces of glue or silicone. If you try to scrape off the silicone adhesive, you risk water damage. Unfortunately, dirt and mold can get behind and under silicone and glue and discolor it. To fix it, you need to contact a professional. Scraping it off with, for example, a click scraper can damage the moisture barrier. So if you discover that it is precisely a glued edge that is discolored in such a way that it cannot be scrubbed clean, you need to contact a knowledgeable floor installer to fix the problem.

 

Wet room mat after it has been scrubbed with soap

 

This is what the plastic carpet, the wet room carpet, looks like after it has been scrubbed with soap. As you can see in the picture, the dirt in the structure has loosened and the carpet is clean and nice. Remember that when you soap up plastic, you must rinse and dry thoroughly. Soap should not be left on dead materials such as plastic. Plastic will not absorb the grease in the soap the way a wooden floor does, but the excess will form a film and become very slippery when the floor gets wet again. So after you scrub the dirt out of the carpet, wipe up all the water and dirt with a cloth. If it is possible to rinse the floor, you can do so and then carefully remove the water with a rubber squeegee. But make sure the room allows for this so you don't cause water damage.

 

Before and after soap scrubbing of plastic wet room carpet

 

On the left you see the carpet and the dirt in the structure and on the right the same carpet after it has been scrubbed with soap and a brush.

Quick overview

 

1. Scrub with a brush , warm water and soap .
2. Dry with a scouring cloth, rinse and shave with a floor squeegee.
3. Make sure that soap is not left on the floor mat, it can make it very slippery the next time it gets wet.
4. During the next cleaning, the floor can be mopped as usual with a couple of drops of washing-up liquid in the bucket.

 

The toilet and cleaning it

 

Scrub the toilet with soap

 

Wiping the toilet seat with a cloth and a little soapy spray every now and then is a good habit, but it does not work as a major cleaning.

 

Most toilet seats are attached to the floor with screws and an edge is formed between the porcelain and the floor where dirt likes to hide. We solve this by scrubbing soap around the toilet itself as well. The scrub brush, the water (hot water) and the soap will remove the dirt that you can never remove no matter how much you wipe with a cloth. In the grooves of the screws and between the floor and porcelain. So by cleaning with a scrub brush here too, the toilet will be really clean and nice. When you are still working with the scrub brush, take care to scrub under the water tank and on the pipes that supply the toilet with water. These pipe fittings and joints get dirty quickly, even if they are not very visible. If your toilet has a button for flushing, there may be an edge here too that feels good from soapy scrubbing.
The toilet seat itself and the holes it is attached to are cleaned in the same way. Lift the toilet seat, place it in the shower or bathtub and scrub it clean in joints and "studs".  The porcelain is scrubbed clean and dried with a cloth before the seat is put back. Your toilet seat is now like new.

 

 

Bathroom accessories that so easily become stale

Things we keep in the bathroom get dirty quickly and easily and we experience them as stale. It takes an awful lot of time to dry and polish everything clean, especially if there are many in the household, the number of bottles and accessories quickly becomes large. A very simple trick is to collect everything in the bath or shower use soap, a brush and an ecofibre cloth if you need and scrub them clean, rinse and let them drain and dry while you clean the rest of the bathroom. Small edges and creases along the pumps of pump bottles then become completely clean, - yes, almost like new.

 

clean things in the bathroom with soap and brush

 

clean things in the bathroom with soap and brush

 

Shower curtains and how to clean them

Shower curtains are a chapter of their own. They are good to have, but few things are as boring as the drapery itself.

 

You need this to clean the shower curtain

 

To get the family's two curtains clean of mold and algae, we use bathroom soap, eco-fibre cloth and the washing machine. Both draperies are infested with mold and we pretreat both sides of the draperies along the edges where the mold sits with soap and warm water on eco-fiber cloth. We then wash them in the machine according to the washing instructions. Note that a very plastic (often cheap) drapery cannot always be saved. The washing machine might ruin it but it might be worth a try to save it. Everything we can reuse, cook, wash and reuse instead of buying new is both an economic and environmental benefit. If the washing council allows, 60*C is preferable.

 

Shower curtain before and after cleaning with soap

 

Before on the left and after on the right. The shower curtains are completely clean when the edges are pre-treated with soap and then machine washed.

When you give your bathroom a major clean - don't forget to clean the floor drains and drains.

It's not fun BUT it's the absolute easiest way to avoid water damage. Cleaning the floor drain so that all the water disappears where it should is cheap insurance and something that can actually be done quite quickly. There is a blog of its own and the not entirely pleasant job of cleaning a floor drain here on the cleaning blog.

Also, don't forget to remove the front of the tub and there is one and to dry on top of the bathroom cabinets. is it necessary it says a bit more practical? - Yes, by keeping the entire bathroom clean, dust and dirt do not swirl around and make your otherwise cleaned surfaces dusty again.

Also, don't forget to clean on top of the bathroom cabinets

 

Of course the bathroom is cleaned!

 

Freshly scrubbed bathroom, the plastic carpet is like new after the soap scrubbing

 

 

As a small bonus, we took the opportunity to exchange the family's toothbrushes for environmentally friendly bamboo toothbrushes and shampoo and conditioner for solid shampoo and conditioner cakes. It is not only climate smart but saves an incredible amount of space in the bathroom. Imagine getting rid of all the shampoo bottles and cans instead, you only have two small nice solid "soaps".