Kids Eating on Carpet

We moved into a new place several months ago. The kitchen is more spacious than what I've had in the past, and our kitchen table has a room of its own. Our "dining room" is only separated from the kitchen by a countertop with cupboards underneath it. The only drawback of this space is that it is carpeted.

I actually like carpet. Even with children. It's comfortable, homey, softens the sound of toys clattering about, and keeps me from having to sweep 14 times a day. So carpet is good. Except in rooms dedicated to food. That, I don't like. I have a five-year-old and a one-year-old who is particularly prone to throwing and dropping food. For the first few months, I vacuumed and hand-picked food up off the floor after each meal. Our carpet cleaner made an appearance several times.

I searched online to try and find a suitable floor covering. I couldn't just replace the carpet with hard flooring because this is a rental home. I didn't like the many suggestions to use a blanket, tarp, tablecloth, or thick plastic sheet underneath the baby's highchair. Those things would bunch up and just get obnoxious to work around and wash or wipe down each time. I had a big rug I could use, and that would save the carpet underneath. But the rug itself would get nasty unless I got on my hands and knees all the time to get stuff out of the fibers and then pull the carpet cleaner out...so that wasn't much better than what I was already doing. I considered one of those plastic mats used under wheeled office chairs. I remember that my family used one of those under my sister's highchair long ago. But I couldn't find one in the right size or shape (and they were getting pricey). I wanted something to go under the whole table and all the pulled-out chairs. My baby's highchair isn't really a highchair. It's a booster seat and tray that's strapped onto one of the chairs at the table. Plus, she's not exactly the only one who spills. I wanted good coverage for everyone. I initially wanted a bamboo rug, which would look the nicest, but those are rather expensive, especially in the size I wanted it. Plus, I was worried that, although you can wipe bamboo rugs clean, things would get lodged between the slats. Sigh. So I didn't know what a good solution would be.

Then, one day, we were shopping in our local home improvement store. I walked by the flooring section of the store and noticed that there were some laminate flooring on clearance. The flooring was sold in packages of slats that you could sort of snap together. Maybe this would work! We purchased two packages (and later a third) and started working on it. It took both my husband and I quite a bit of adjusting and pushing before it all clicked together and looked right. We just put it right on top of the carpet, with nothing in between. It does slide on the carpet a tiny bit over the course of a month or so, but that's not a big deal to me. For a while, we were debating whether or not it looked ghetto, but finally decided that it looked fine, and it was the best option for us. I like it. Now, I can sweep it and mop it just like a kitchen floor. Once, one of the girls spilled some water and I didn't realize it for a couple hours. After I cleaned it up, the edge of one of the boards puckered up a bit. You can see it in the picture, but that's mostly because of the angle of the camera. When you're standing up, it's really not that noticeable. I can't remember exactly how much it cost, but I believe it was $40-$50 for the whole thing. Totally worth it. And it doubles as a dance floor. Well, I haven't done it yet, but I plan on moving the table and chairs and using the thing as a dance floor sometime.