Table Tip

For the first ten or so years of our lives together, Jerry and I had a kitchen table that he built for us.  We loved it.  It was made of good solid wood and had a laminate top with nice solid wooden benches.  However, eventually our family outgrew that table.  We purchased a bigger, nice solid wooden table with chairs.  I quickly realized that if I wanted our nice wooden table to stay that way with our busy family, I would need to do something to protect it.

Like most families, we do a lot more at our kitchen table than just eat.  It gets used for rolling out cookies and pies, playdough, painting, soap carving, school work, canning, board games, lego, bubble blowing, and even occasional veterinary work (actually, that only happened once and I will probably never share that scary story on this blog). 

My solution was one that we are still using today.  I purchased a length of clear flexible plastic (found it on rolls in the fabric department at Walmart) and simply covered the table with it.  Most messes clean up very easily and it even protects against dings and scratches to the wood.  Last week it even got covered with white glue and glitter and it simply got taken outside and sprayed off with a hose.  When we do want to have a nice formal dinner it is easy enough to take the plastic off and use a cloth tablecloth or placemats.  Three or four times a year I replace the plastic as it does occasionally get small tears in it that can allow moisture to get underneath and get trapped between the plastic and the table.  But it is really quite inexpensive and the years it has given to the life of our table have been worth it. 

Besides protecting the table we also use the plastic table cover to add a little fun to our kitchen.  Sometimes the children will make paper snowflakes in the wintertime and slide them underneath the plastic.  We have also put maps under the plastic, family pictures, and even sign language flashcards. 
 
Today the kids and I picked up a new length of plastic for the table.  I am hoping that they will get excited and make some Christmas and wintery decorations to go underneath it.