The Vine: December 16, 2011
Last year, my husband and I spent a great deal of cash money to renovate our house. Underneath the grody taupe carpet, we found gorgeous oak floors that are original to the house. Imagine our delight as our flooring budget went from $8/sq. ft. for new wood floors (because we didn’t know what was under there) to less than half that for refinishing/staining/etc.
Except.
We have a problem. Our dining furniture is scraping the hell out of the floors. I’ve tried those wee felt pads on the bottom of the chair legs but they don’t stay on and/or the dog makes it her business to gnaw them off. How she does this, I do not know, but I long ago accepted that she is smarter than we are.
I need a solution. Something, anything, to keep these chairs from scratching the floors (which aren’t even a year into service and already needing to be spruced up). Help me, Nation!
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
*****
Hi Sars,
I have literally been searching for this book on and off for years with no luck. I am hoping the mighty Tomato Nation might be able to help me out.
I checked this out of the library (repeatedly) in either the late ’80s or early ’90s, which would put me somewhere in the 8-12 range, and I think the book was aimed at the older end of that. It was about this girl band who no one would take seriously until they started pretending to be boys. After that, they started getting hired for parties (which got awkward at one point when a birthday girl started flirting with them) and eventually made it into a big-deal battle of the bands. Except they felt all conflicted about pretending to be something they weren’t, so I think they unveiled as girls at the battle of the bands in some dramatic way.
Also, I am pretty sure that as part of their band costume they dressed up as tigers.
Can anyone help? I remember loving this book and would really like to read it again!
L
Tags: Ask The Readers home 'n' garden popcult
I have two suggestions for the furniture. I have brown plastic square caster cups on our bedframe legs to keep them from moving around on our hardwood floors (thank you, large Labrador with very little spatial awareness for making this necessary) and scratching the beejesus out of them. I found them at Fred Meyer, but they’re probably available at most department/Target/hardware stores. Make sure you get the kind that are designed for hardwoods, since the carpet ones have pokey stuff on the back that will also destroy the floors.
The other option would be furniture glides, which are basically big tacks with plastic and felt heads that you put into the base of the legs to keep your furniture ever so slightly off the floor. That depends on how you feel about adding things to your furniture, but the dog will likely fail at trying to get them off. Or if it succeeds with the felt, the plastic will still protect the floor.
Nice – instead of the stick-on felt pads, try using the plastic ones with a spike. They nail into the leg and slide without leaving marks. The nail is about an inch long so you shouldn’t have a problem of it working it’s way out. I have them on most of my furniture and I have no scratch marks on my floor. Any hardware store will carry these.
Nice things – If you’re into the truly sophisticated look, jam tennis balls onto your chair legs. If not, I second the furniture glides that look like oversized thumb tacks. You just pound them into the chair feet.
Second the suggestion for furniture glides!
Also,I haven’t read the second book,i don’t think, but the story sounds very similar to The Cheetah Girls (a Disney movie), which was apparently based on a series of YA novels…the timeline is a bit off because the novels started in 1999, but see if this fits the bill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cheetah_Girls_(novel_series)
L, I loved that book, or the book I think it is anyway – Hey, Didi Darling by Stephanie Kennedy. http://www.librarything.com/work/2038532 Sort of Ellen Conford-ish, if I remember correctly….
Nice Things –
A rug? I know it covers up those wood floors, but maybe something that accents them and shifts attention TO the floors is possible.
Book of Joe has highlighted two items that may be of use, both on the same theme:
Chair Silencers (they also protect floors)
http://www.bookofjoe.com/2011/12/chair-silencers.html
Table Socks
http://www.bookofjoe.com/2007/11/table-socks.html
The first one is more recent than the second and looks sturdier, but your dog may have a field day with the idea of fabric trapped under something heavy, so maybe the other ones will work better. Good luck!
My stepmother has chair and table leg socks. They change with the season and there are holiday ones, Christmas, Easter, 4th of July, you name it. If she hosts a birthday party, the clown (shudder) chair and table leg socks appear. She’s knitted, crocheted and quilted them herself but she’s retired and they have no dogs so that’s probably not a good solution for your situation.
Most people with wooden floors (in my experience) either put sturdier feet on their chairs (google sliders, instead of felt pads), or they put an area rug underneath the dining set.
Thirding furniture glides. They are awesome.
Another option could be a rug. We have a sizable one from Ikea under our dining table. It was cheap enough that I don’t freak out if it gets dirty (which is rare, in any case), it’s easy to clean, and I like how it “anchors” the table and chairs.
How about a rug underneath the dining room table and chairs? I know it hides a bit of the nice floors, but my parents have done this in their dining room and it looks quite nice.
My husband works as a set dresser and uses both felt pads and the plastic spike/nail pads on the bottom of furniture. Most of the floors on tv shows are painted to look like tile or whatever and they can’t get scratched because then the floor is gone.
He put the plastic spike flavored pads on our kitchen chairs and our floors have been scratch free ever since!
Definitely Hey, Didi Darling. It’s pretty awesome.
Hi! This is L and the book is definitely Hey Didi Darling! I am so excited that you guys found it for me… I just purchased a copy off Amazon and I am so psyched to see if it is as awesome as I remember it being.
Thanks Tomato Nation! Your knowledge of obscure literature continues to rock!
Nice Things, we used the plastic furniture glides that others have suggested and over time, as the glides started to get beat up, they still scratched the floors. In my experience, your best bet is a nice throw rug.
Nice Things, if you’re looking into the rug possibility, I’m a big fan of the Flor rug squares from http://www.flor.com. They’re inexpensive compared to most rugs, they look nice, and they offer tremendous flexibility in configuration. (Even without dogs, I like having a few backup tiles in case I wreck a piece of the rug–I can just pop a new one in.) You don’t have to be clever or crafty to put them together, but you can pretend to be deeply creative even if you’re not and develop fun patterns on their Rug Configurator (TM, I’m sure).
Jas, I confess I’m really drawn to the notion of something seriously Scando-’60s in the dining room, like chartreuse plastic chairs with hot pink tennis balls whimsically attached to the feet–and then maybe incorporated into the chandelier or something.
Rather than those felt pads you can superglue felt to the bottom of the furniture yourself.
Hollie beat me to it, but it makes me happy to know other people remember Hey Didi Darling. :)