Wooden floors are one of the most attractive and hardwearing types of flooring available and should give you years of trouble-free and low-maintenance service; however, if you have children, you may find your floors get more than their fair share of use and abuse. Muddy shoes, hard toys, spilled drinks and ground-in cake crumbs can damage even the most durable flooring.
What can you do? A house should be lived in, of course, so here are some ideas that will help to childproof your wooden flooring:
Get a mat
Doormats are invaluable for helping to remove a large percentage of the dirt and debris on shoes, so don’t skimp on them. Buy good-quality entrance mats for both the front and back door and you will go a long way towards keeping your interiors in tip-top condition.
According to Reader’s Digest, most of the dirt enters unnoticed on shoes that do not appear to be either muddy or dirty.
Shoes off!
You may not be able to force guests to take their shoes off when they come to visit, but you can make it a household rule. Encourage your little ones to wear slippers indoors by buying them ones they like and keeping them by the door so they can change as soon as they come home.
Clean up at once
It is a fact of life that children are going to spill things, however careful you are. Ensure you clean up any spills as soon as you can, as this will help to stop them permeating any flooring.
Maintain
Maintaining your wooden flooring regularly will help not only to keep it clean but also in good condition.
Rug it
Rugs are ideal for protecting floors from little ones’ toys. Consider getting a ‘play rug’ – this will make playing on the floor cosier and help to keep your floor in good condition. Rugs look fantastic on oak engineered flooring from specialists such as www.woodfloorwarehouse.co.uk/engineered-flooring/.
Furniture feet
Furniture gets moved around when you have children – toddlers make their way around the room, little ones build dens and teenagers never keep still – so it is wise to get something to stop chair legs scraping the flooring. There are numerous things you can use – even chair socks – but ensure they are not choking hazards if your children are young.
