We’ve outgrown our dining room table. I have grand plans to make a new, bigger tabletop for it while keeping the base so we can all eat together again.
But I have a dilemma. My kitchen isn’t huge, and I don’t have a lot of hard floors in my house.
There is a breakfast nook with wood flooring, but it barely fits the table we have. There’s no way I’ll be able to squeeze a bigger one in there. Fortunately, there is a large, open family room right off the kitchen. Unfortunately, it’s carpeted.
Now, I recently bought a doormat made out of olefin that can be hosed off to clean it. I’ve seen large area rugs, also made out of olefin. Would that work, and protect the carpet in our rental? I need something that is easy to clean. Do those outdoor carpets really hose down and still look great?
Any other ideas out there in blogland? Can I emphasize that whatever I put under the table it MUST be easily washable, with toddlers and babies eating at every meal?
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m not sure about the rugs you talk about but I do know that the $10 area rugs out at W*l-M*rt are usually pretty durable and easy to spot treat because they are low pile. You could always get 2 to fit the area if you needed a larger area. And if you was worried about spills going through you could always lay down thick plastic under the rugs to help. (you know the plastic people use to plastic windows – higher the mil on the plastic the better)
A trick that you could do is if you need help to keep the rugs in place tack them down in the corners with a fat head nails. When you need to remove it just pull the nails out with a hammer and there should be no way to tell you did it afterwards. =)
What about a plastic runner? You could put down two rows of it.
http://www.esrchairmats.com/carpet-runners/vinyl.html
I have the indoor/outdoor rug that is 5×9 and vomit and jelly hose right off… you can’t get worse than that right?
Hosing vomit right off is exactly what I’m looking for! LOL
Even if the rug is washable, how are you going to wash it? Are you going to move your dining room table and take the rug outside every day and hose it off?
If you plan on being in the rental for a long time you might be able to get the landlord to let you tile the room and just keep the piece of carpet you take up to replace it when you decide to move.
Drag it out in the yard and hose it down, I hope! I would probably sweep/vacuum and wash it off when it gets really cruddy. I don’t even mop my floors every day, let alone wash the carpet. We do a lot of spot cleaning.
I wasn’t being a smartass asking about the rug, it was a genuine question.
I would think that you could just wipe it off regularly and hose it once in a blue moon.
I just wanted to let you know that I read your laundry advice and it realy made a huge difference to me. Obviously I made some changes for our situation, but just the idea . . . I don’t know. I’m adjusting to three children, so every bit helps.
Those indoor/outdoor carpets are on sale now. I think I saw a very inexpensive one at Homedepot.com. Seems like a great idea.
You could put together a floating floor over the carpet, and under and around the table by using peel and stick tiles on plywood. I’ve seen them at Big Lots and Family Dollar/Dollar General. Maybe edge it out with some carpet transition trim so no one trips. The trim is very inexpensive at Home Depot or Lowes – plastic or metal.
I don’t like to clean our carpet..My vacuum is not doing good now. And so I need to wash my carpet in my own, its very heavy.
Thank you for stopping by my blog. I appreciate it. We have a toddler dining mat that we put under her chair at meal times. It is just decorated plastic made especially for food spills. It worked for us and we ended up getting it for free on Freecycle
Blessings!