Hardwood floors are the pride and joy of most of our homes today, and they are not only fancy but also unique. In addition to these exciting qualities and features, hardwood floors are an exact representation of nature in our homes. On the other hand, bar stools are a luxury and ensure that we are comfortable, especially around our high kitchen tops.
Bar stools and hardwood floors are like peanut butter and tuna, together they are not so good, but separately they are enthralling. The base of bar stools is mostly made of metal, and this effectively damages the hardwood floors. Despite bar stools being the in thing today, we should not allow this trend to ruin our hardwood floors. Here are a few robust tips on how to preserve and protect our hardwood floors from bar stools.
Tips On How To Protect Your Hardwood Floors From Bar Stools
Hardwood floors and bar stools don’t occasionally do well together. However, to bring out that unique and elegant look to your home, you need to find a way to ensure that they go well together and offer the minimum amount of danger to one another. Below are a few pointers on how you can achieve this
Place plastic slips or felt pads at the bottom of your bar stool. The main problem of bar stools is theirs in layman’s language, hazardous bases made of metal, and scratches on the floor. To combat this problem, pads are placed at their bases; nevertheless, they tend to slide away and fall off. But as is common knowledge today, all issues have a solution. To tackle this problem, you should purchase padding that is not only soft but can also be nailed to the base of the bar stool for a firmer grip.
However, nailing padding on the base of the bar stool is dreary, and you might also end up spending much time and money on this unnecessary remodeling. I would advise you to go for bar stools that have already been equipped with adhesives while purchasing them. This option not only saves your hardwood floors from unnecessary damage but also saves you time and money. Despite this being the best option, it is only eligible if you haven’t bought the bar stools yet.
Alternatively, you could always place a mat or soft rug at the base of the bar stool. This is the most effective method for everyone, whether or not you have purchased the stools. In addition to averting damage from the barstools, they prevent damage from other materials that accidentally fall from the countertop.
Chair Tips For Hardwood Floors
As society dictates, you can not deny the inevitable, for any home chairs are a necessity despite the floor’s sensitivity. At this point, it is as clear as day that chairs may pose a certain degree of harm to hardwood floors. Nonetheless, this level of damage can be lessened. Below we look at the best methods to reduce the harsh effects of chairs on hardwood floors.
The chair’s weight is an essential factor in deciding the type of furniture to be utilized around hardwood floors. We all know how gravity works; the heavier the chair, the more pressure, and stress it applies on the floor. To even further the damage imagine the furniture being sat on by multiple persons, disastrous, right? Light furniture is the best for our prestigious hardwood floors.
Use of mats and furniture pads. These items are used to reduce the risk of flood damage by ensuring the chair is not in direct contact with the hardwood floor. The items used, like the mats, are used to cushion the effect of the chair’s harsh metal bases from the floor. As trends change, many new things are discovered, and there are many ways to cushion chairs today. They include the use of felt glides, PVC glides, and spring-loaded glides, among many more.
Did you know that an enormous responsibility of how we preserve our hardwood floors falls on us? After our chairs are placed in the different rooms, we should ensure they are slowly and carefully put in the room and avoid dragging them. Long dragging of chairs around the rooms wears off their bases and roughens them. Due to their rough bases, they end up scratching and putting marks on the hardwood floors. If your interest is a beautiful hardwood floor, I highly advise you to lift your chair if it’s necessary to move it.
What To Put Under Furniture To Protect Hardwood Floors
At this point, it is crystal clear that hardwood floors are not only expensive to install and maintain but also run at a high risk of damage. Thanks to modern advances, a lot of awareness has been raised concerning hardwood floors conservation, especially furniture. Constant renovation and remodeling of our rooms may involve pushing and dragging the furniture.
In return, it puts markings and scratches on the floor, predominantly if the bases of the furniture comprise metals or rough plastics. To protect our hardwood floors, cushioning is put under the chairs to lessen the damage. Some of the materials placed under furniture include;
Felt glides or felt pads
There are many kinds of felt glides designed for different types of furniture bases. Before purchasing the felt pads, consider the floor type and bottom of your furniture. Here are a few types of felt glides suitable for hardwood floors.
Nail on felt glides – this type of glide is hammered at the base of the chair. This nail ensures that the glide is firmly attached to the chair, in addition to securing it in place. The nail-on felt glides are long-lasting, durable, and don’t fall off.
Tap on felt glides – this type of felt glides is unique and easy to install. Furthermore, they do not require drilling or gluing as they are hammered directly to the chair’s base. In addition to all their beautiful features, they are highly durable and require very little maintenance.
Sled base felt glides- unlike all the other types of regarded guides, these are specifically designed to attach themselves to the furniture. In addition to being flexible, they do not require drilling, gluing, or even hammering. Sled base felt glides could fully stretch and snap into the furniture base. Moreover, they are bonded with soft padding that does not damage the floor.
Levelers with felt pads- Talk of perfection; these felt pads are flexible in that they can be adjusted to any height or level of your choice. It is mostly ideal for chairs with uneven legs or a floor that is not fully leveled. Perfect perfection, right? Their benefits don’t stop there. Not only are they long-lasting and durable, but also easy to install, providing a simple hand drill is available.
Finally, we have the Snap-on felt glides, which are great for rounded metal bases. Furthermore, they are available in all diameters and sizes and also grip the furniture’s base rightly. The firm grip is advantageous because it does not fall off regularly; hence it requires little to no maintenance.
Use of mats and wheels
Similarly, another way to protect our hardwood floors from furniture damage is by the use of mats. Firstly mats are soft clothes that can be placed underneath the furniture to reduce damaging the floor. The mats act as a barrier between the floor and chair, protecting against scratches when moving or remodeling the furniture. Secondly, the mats also cushion the floor from other damages such as broken glass.
Likewise, wheels also serve the same purpose as the floor mats; however, they do not cushion against all forms of harm, such as broken glass. The wheels only ensure that there are no markings on the floor during any form of movement.
Furniture Traffic Considerations
Like ordinary traffic, how regularly your chairs are moved will play a major role in the type of padding to go with and how they are arranged in the designated space. The furniture should be well-positioned so as not to inhibit movement or require regular repositioning to create space. The movement is necessary; go for thick pieces of padding, especially for bulky furniture, to discourage markings.
Before installing the furniture, calculate and establish where traffic is mostly high. Secondly, consider the direction where the doors and windows swing in to evade hiring the furniture every time they are opened, leading to minor movements of the furniture hence floor damage. In dining rooms and kitchens, there will be furniture traffic. As a result, go for the proper padding for the chairs.
In addition to the appropriate padding, re-evaluate the room patterns to discern where the furniture best fits and minimalizes movement. In living rooms, try and assess how the furniture would be treated, would there be frequent movement? Would they be frequently used? Are there kids to jump on them? How many people will use the seats?
After answering all these questions, deduce the maximum number of chairs to be used at that point to not only avoid furniture congestion but also to reduce traffic in the house. Oddly enough, traffic flows within our homes determine where and how the furniture will be placed.
Diy Options
Lastly, there is always the do-it-yourself option popularly known as DIY. And as is common say where there is a DIY involved, a hot glue gun is not far away. The DIY option is most suitable for the materials lying around the house, and you want to spare some cost. Here are a few options to try during your own free time.
Old carpet
Worn-out scrapes pieces of old carpet can be used to create proper felt padding. Cut out various shapes of the carpet according to your furniture base. Using the hot glue gun, stick the padding at the bottom of the furniture, ensuring the carpet side faces the hardwood floor.
Felt pads
Felt pads specifically for chairs are available in most store outlets; despite this, ordinary felt pads might also get the job done just as well. All you need to do is cut the felt pads into the appropriate shapes and glue them onto the chairs.
Velcro
In case you happen to own the right type of velcro, use the right side of the velcro, preferably the looped side, as floor felt pads. Using your hot glue gun, stick the velcro on the chair’s bottom but ensure the looped side faces the floor.
Towels
Old worn-out towels can also be used as chair padding. However, the towels, have to be too thick to serve the intended purpose.
Tennis balls
Tennis balls are round, and hence they can not be glued directly to the furniture. The tennis balls are subsequently cut into halves for proper fitting and to prevent sliding over. They also come with the challenge of appearance; they rarely blend with the room’s interior design.
The best thing about the DIY options is that they are cost-friendly and do not require professionals to execute them. They are easily done in the comfort of our homes by ourselves; therefore, we can make and design them exactly how we wanted them to be in the first place.
Conclusion
It is no secret that hardwood floors require a lot of care. However, this does not mean that our house’s other objects should be neglected to favor the hardwood floors. Thanks to modern advances, there are many ways hardwood floors could co-exist with other things such as furniture. Barstools are a form of comfort and luxury in our homes.
Their intended goal is to ensure we are comfortable around high counters. As you guessed, they pose a certain extent of danger to the floor. Despite this, they beautify the house. There are many ways to control damage to the floor from the barstools, as seen above. These ways ensure that our hardwood floors are preserved, and at the same time, our homes are comfortable and look elegant.
