Cleaning Series

2 Bucket Mopping Method

** This post contain affiliate links. The link you click to purchase from is an afflict link, I get a portion of the sale at no additional cost to you!!! Thank you for your support*

This may seem odd for me to start a series as such! Recently I have found comfort and joy in cleaning. Maybe it is the instant satisfaction I get when I can SEE all the dirt that is being cleaned or maybe it is the feeling of calmness a clean house brings to me.

This may be the Millennial talking in me.

But, I wanted to share some tips that I have tried along the way that hopefully can bring the joy out of cleaning for you too!

Let the series begin!!!!

What is the 2 Bucket Mop Method?

So traditional mopping is utilizing a single bucket and a mop. You put your solution in a bucket, fill it up with water, and then you mop. You use the same bucket of solution until you have mopped your entire home. I utilized this method for years with the O-Cedar Easywring. That is until I stumbled upon the infamous Cleantok side of TikTok – mind you it is very addicting.

I stumbled upon a creator, Danielle, from Mom That Loves To Clean. She was the person who understood my passion for cleaning so I decided to give her a follow. Then when I found out she has her own handbook, you know I bought it right up!

She explained to me the process of the 2 bucket mop method. So when you have 2 buckets, you dedicate one as your “dirty” bucket and the other as your “clean” bucket. I will leave my recipe down below for my clean bucket.

So for me, my “clean” bucket is a simple, cheap bucket and my “dirty” bucket is the O-Cedar bucket. I would get my clean mop head, dip it into my “clean” bucket, then I would spin it dry (maybe 6-7 times) in my “dirty” bucket. I then would mop a section of flooring, bring the now dirty mop head to the “dirty” bucket, agitate it in O-Cedar solution, spin dry again (at least 10 times), then dip my NOW rinsed mop head into my clean bucket to repeat the process.

Now, the MOST satisfying part about ALL this is the after-mop pour. Since we have a dedicated dirty bucket, all the grime that we mopped up will be in our “dirty” bucket. Now. You may be asking yourself, why the HECK would you go through ALL this trouble just to mop. What if I told you the reason I switched to this method was because I did not want to just move dirt around or mop with the same dirty water. That makes sense! Using only one bucket was doing NOTHING for me. The once clean water would be made dirty as soon as I put that dirty mop head back into the same water; I was just moving the same dirt around- nothing was getting picked up.

I have waterproof LVP- be sure to check with your floor manufacture to see its mopping conditions and instructions BEFORE using the 2 bucket mop method.

How to Clean Mop Heads

So, I have used this method to clean my mop heads and it not only works but also preserves my mop heads. The OLD me would just tossed the mop head sin the washer with my towels and wash them. Now, that thought makes me cringe!

So you take the O-Cedar mop, fill it with some boiling hot water and used the same recipe for the clean bucket ( oxiclean, tide, dishwasher pod, splash Pine Sol) and this time, you also add a TINY splash of bleach. Mix everything up really well. Then you take your hop heads and you soak them overnight. In the morning, all the dirt will settle to the bottom, and you spin those heads dry, I’m talking like 20 times. Then, you take the heads outside to dry. Leave it in direct sunlight. The sun will of course dry it faster AND sanitize it AND make them whiter – you’re welcome!