This is what I've spent the last couple of weeks doing, cleaning glue off the floorboards in my crafty room, when I took up the carpet I found it had been glued onto the floor. I was just going to get the floor sanded but because of the glue several sanding places either raised the cost dramatically or could not guarantee a good result. When I asked what if I clean the glue myself and then you just sand the floor ready for me to polish the answer was "there's no way you will be able to get the glue off" in other words, suck it up. The hardware shop people said the same thing you can't just remove the glue and not make a mess of the polished boards. That's now about six people who have told me I can't do it and I don't know what I'm talking about. The top photo shows the before and after the floor was totally covered in hard glue and dirt so I washed it with hot soapy water to get a better look at the glue problem. The hot water made some of the floor sticky so I had the idea to use bicarb of soda as it's gentle non toxic and great for sticky label patches. It totally worked!!! I did fairly small patches at a time, wash in hot soapy water, sprinkle thickly with bicarb and then spread over patch with hand, adding more water if floor is to dry it needs to be quite wet to work well, leave for ten minutes or so then scrape off, the bicarb turns the glue to an almost chewing gum consistency. Some areas needed several applications, the photos below show the glue after the bicarb soak ready to be scraped. Problem solved! now if I can just get my huge stash of fabric, fibre and yarn organized I might be able to start and finish a project or two.
