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Donna Marie
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| Posted: May 31 2006 at 2:14pm | IP Logged
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I need a hint...some decorating advice....
I have a countryish dining room that has a hardwood floor. Because it is an older home (1923) the center of the room (approx 8x8) was left unfinished. To one side of this I have the dining room table that we eat at for all of our meals. In the last 6 years we have gone through 2 area rugs due to milk spillage etc. I was using an olefin type rug...a nice pattern that could take spot cleaning, but I think that this rug needs to be replaced...again...
I was wondering what would be the nicest most affordable covering I could put on the floor. Part of me is thinking that I should just refinish the floor, but it needs to be replaced in spots so I think that option might be a waste of money. This room is the center of our home and most widely used...it is a large room with one whole wall of bookcases and I think it needs a rug to keep the noise down and make it feel cozy...this is the room we "do school" in.
What do you think my options are on this?
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Donna Marie from NJ
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Finding Elegant Simplicity
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8kids4me
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| Posted: May 31 2006 at 7:10pm | IP Logged
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I have the same type of dining room/school room(our house was built in 1919), and after 20 years of it looking awful, we are putting in carpet. I figure the new stain resistant types with some steam cleaning every few months should do the trick. I am just not up to the work involved in fixing and revarnishing the floor.
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Cindy B, mama to 8 great kids, and 5 grandbabies!
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LisaD
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| Posted: May 31 2006 at 8:32pm | IP Logged
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Having lived in a house for five years now that has wall-to-wall carpet in the dining room, I can say that I would never, never plan to have carpeting in a dining room. At least not while I have a bunch of little kids at home. The carpet in our dining room has, or at least needs to be, steam cleaned monthly. It is just gross. IMO, any kind of hard surface flooring would be better than carpeting in a high-traffic dining room.
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stacykay
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| Posted: May 31 2006 at 10:58pm | IP Logged
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LisaD wrote:
Having lived in a house for five years now that has wall-to-wall carpet in the dining room, I can say that I would never, never plan to have carpeting in a dining room. At least not while I have a bunch of little kids at home. The carpet in our dining room has, or at least needs to be, steam cleaned monthly. It is just gross. IMO, any kind of hard surface flooring would be better than carpeting in a high-traffic dining room.
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I second every word of this! We have wall-to-wall carpet in our living room (was here when we moved in 9 1/2 years ago.) After this amount of time, it is gross. Spotted. Awful.  And no amount of steam-cleaning can get it even half-way decent looking at this point. Our hardwood floors (we could only afford the foyer and kitchen areas when we moved in,) while needing to be redone, still look really good, even with stampeding children and dog (who is only allowed on the hardwood.)
God Bless,
Stacy in MI
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stacykay
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| Posted: May 31 2006 at 11:04pm | IP Logged
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oops... I didn't include that our dining room and living room are one big space, with the carpet covering all the floor. Under the table is bad, but the living room is just as awful. Maybe a dark color would be an option if you do decide to go the carpet route (ours is a tan color, with walls white up to the chair rail, in the dining room, and an apple green on top, with white crown molding, and insulated floral curtains from Country Curtains.)
I do have to add, that each time I steam clean, I have to empty the collection tank very often, and the water is always black. We don't wear shoes on the carpet, either.
God Bless,
Stacy in MI
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Donna Marie
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| Posted: May 31 2006 at 11:20pm | IP Logged
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I really want to stay away from wall-to-wall...at least i can mop up a hardwood floor....our dining room and living room are almost one whole room too...I have so many stampeding children... I have to keep it simple....
ooh btw..I LOVE Country Curtains...they have a store not too far away from here and it is a near occasion of sin for me...  LOL..the material is of quality that holds up when washed and still looks great!
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Donna Marie from NJ
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marihalojen
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| Posted: June 01 2006 at 7:50am | IP Logged
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Have you considered Carpet Tiles as an alternative to refinishing or replacing a large rug (just the stained tiles can be lifted and replaced) I saw a room somewhere where they mixed half a dozen similar shades randomly so they could replace stained ones easily with sale tiles and not worry about perfect matches. Just an idea, and this is just the first site that popped up, I know Home Depot/Lowes sells them as well.
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8kids4me
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| Posted: June 01 2006 at 10:44am | IP Logged
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I guess my biggest problem is that my floors haven't been redone since 1919. They look awful, so I thought carpet might work. I'm going to look into the carpet squares, though.
We also have the insulated flowered curtaing from Country Curtains in the living room, and the matching valances in the dining room!! First time in the 20 years I've been here that I have actually LIKED the window treatments!
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Cindy B, mama to 8 great kids, and 5 grandbabies!
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Sarah
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| Posted: June 01 2006 at 10:57am | IP Logged
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We will NEVER have carpet again. We are WAY too messy for that. We had stain resistant carpet and an expensive steam cleaner. The more you clean it the grosser it gets. Cleaning it does something to the carpet where it actually attracts dirt.
My inlaws without children had the same problem. The more they cleaned the carpet the worse it looked.
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stacykay
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We have had our curtains for at least 12 years. Washed many times, they look great. We brought them from our old house (included them on the *will be taking* info when we sold our house-the people who bought the house really wanted them!)
My boys are spillers and mud-trackers, so, when we can afford to get new floors, they will be wood. It is expensive, and I do not like the carpet (especially with my son's graduation party coming up in 3 weeks.)
But we are blessed in so many other ways!
God Bless,
Stacy in MI
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ALmom
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Our old house had carpet in the dining room, which was our sole eating area. I would never have carpet where we ate again! You mentioned that there are lots of spills. Well fluid sinking under the carpet = mold eventually (and the more spills, the sooner that occurs). Steam cleaning only makes it worse!
Janet
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cathhomeschool
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What about using an oilcloth "rug?" Lots of places sell splat mats made of oilcloth. They are kind of small, but maybe you could make your own or sew/lay two mats together? Land of Nod has some larger splat mats, but you'd still need two for your area. Just trying to be creative here and think of something other than carpet (which I HIGHLY vote AGAINST! We bought a house with a carpeted dining room. Now we have tile and I'm soooo glad!)
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mary
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we have wooden floors and i think they are perfect. they need refinishing, but they are easy to clean. we had a rug for awhile and i hated it. it was stained and required constant vacuuming that never seemed to get up all the crumbs. switching to a dyson vacuum cleaner has completely changed my housekeeping. that vacuum sucks up every grain of sand or crumb. if i could, i would get rid of every carpet in my house.
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8kids4me
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Does anyone know hot to clean wood floors that are shedding very old varnish? We have bare spots in some places, and dirty old varnish in others.
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Cindy B, mama to 8 great kids, and 5 grandbabies!
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marihalojen
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I know the first step: Sand it
(and the second and the third...sand, sand, sand )
If a floor is anything like a boat you'll spend most of your time sanding. After all the old varnish is gone (if it wasn't flaking you'd have other options) and the wood is so smooth and beautiful you'd not mind if your baby sat barebummed on it, and you cannot stop running your hands on the smooth, smooth floor that you just spent the summer sanding with the grain, then the process of building up layers and layers of varnish begins with lots of dry time between layers or it'll look cruddy and you'll have to sand it down and start again. Maybe the humidity in NY will allow a faster dry time than here.
Lowes has a Working With Varnish section, doesn't address floors though.
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lapazfarm
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You can paint on wood floors, too. I've seen them painted just in certain areas to look like an area rug under a table and an entrance rug and they were so cute with flowered borders and a diamond shaped pattern in the center. Just be sure to use the appropriate paint, which I don't know, but wherever you buy paint they should be able to tell you.
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Theresa
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Topic: Floor covering for dining area?
