Baby and toddler proof your dining room

Before kids we had a pretty low-maintenance (I thought) eating area... an old but pleasant teak table and chairs with upholstered seats. We used place mats to protect the table and had a sisal rug on the floor.

Turns out this was possibly the worst possible combo with messy babies and toddlers. The texture of sisal rugs traps all kinds of food that's thrown on the floor and forget about cleaning up spills. Meanwhile the unfinished teak was susceptible to water and heat damage. And there appeared to be nothing the girls liked more than reaching up and pulling down the place mats. Ditto for lots of tablecloths we tried. And since room is scarce for two highchairs, we had booster seats strapped onto two of our chairs which wasn't doing wonders for the upholstered seats. Here's how we stumbled through making the daily dining space kid proofed and also not terrible looking:

First we had to come up with a table covering before the teak top got irreparably ruined. We ended up getting some Mexican-style oilcloth (below). It cleans up REALLY easily, plus the back has a sort of stickiness to it so that it stays in place fairly well. At first I used binder clips clip it all together under the table so the girls couldn't pull it off. But now I just let it hang loose and with a fairly generous overhang it hasn't been a problem at all.

Next issue was the upholstered seats. First I tried an old flannel backed tablecloth that I had lying around and cut it in half. Then I wrapped the seats bottoms up with it like a present and secured it with duct tape. After a while the tape failed and it ended up looking pretty terrible. And with all the folds and the textured vinyl material it just didn't clean up very well.

So I finally went and got some smooth plastic tablecloth material that they sell by the yard at the local longs. It was clear with cute frogs on it. This time I took the 30 minutes to actually take the seat bottoms off and use thumbtacks to properly to put this easy clean material on top of the existing upholstery. Voila! See pic at left, but I think it looks great and it has worked really well.

when we couldn't stand it anymore we'd post it on Final challenge was the rug. I kind of let it go and just let it get dirtier and dirtier assuming that freecycle and then figure out what to do next. I tried using a smaller cotton rug under the girls' chairs but even though that could go in the wash it was a pain to wash and dry it all the time.

The answer has come in the form of Home Depot. They sell industrial grade carpet in sizes of 6X8 and 9X12. This stuff isn't the most gorgeous thing ever, but it's indestructible, can be hosed off and I smelled all the options they had there and I couldn't detect any nasty smells. When the grand total for my nice multi-hued 6X8 rug came to $23 bucks at the register, the sales woman asked "that's a great deal, where did you find it? are there more back there? I want to get one."

It was a long process, but we're finally in a state where the girls can feed themselves and the food can fly everywhere and I can just sit back and let them learn and make a mess and not stress about the clean up.