Q & A for a Canvas Floor Cloth

A Letter Asking About a Canvas Floor Cloth

Hello, I am interested in a canvas floor cloth for our kitchen and I have a few questions.

Background:

We have a hardwood floor, with a pedestal table and rolling kitchen chairs. The house is a little crooked so the chairs roll away from the table if we don’t have something providing a little friction. We need a solution that is easy to have the chairs roll up and back.  All four chairs won’t be on the canvas rug at all times because that would require a very large rug.

We have two messy boys, so we need something that is easy to clean and doesn’t show dirt. We have a light-colored house, and would like a light-colored canvas, but don’t want it to look dirty all the time.

 Questions:

1) Is a  canvas floor cloth a good option if we are going to have  chairs rolling on and off?

2) How do we best keep it clean?

3) How dark a background color do we need to camouflage the dirt?

4) These are wall paper samples. Does it make a difference in price if we use this pattern and repeat it with small leaves and flowers – like it would be on the wall paper or a few big leaves and flowers?  We have a very modern house so I’d like the pattern to be big enough that it feels modern, but not so big that the sample reflects the entire canvas floor cloth.

Dear Karen, I love your detailed letter; this is something I really enjoy responding to, so let’s go!

 Answers:

1)      Rolling chairs- I use a putty tack to fasten the rug to the floor.

What this does is keeps the rug firm on the floor so a rolling chair or stumbling feet do not trip on the edges. Shown is a photo of small round canvas floor cloths used in a beauty salon, where the rolling chairs are  used all day long and have not had an adverse effect.

This  Installation and Maintenance link demonstrates how to use the putty to install your canvas floor cloth.

2) The advantage of the canvas floor cloth is that it can be swept or vacuumed and mopped along with the rest of the floor. Soap and water work best.

3) Hiding dirt is not so much about a dark background. A dark color can show up dirt as much as a light color. What we want to do is create a mottled effect on the background so the background is not one solid color. This technique makes it so smudges and smears don’t stand out as much.

4)  In designing a pattern I always ask how big you want it. Each size of the pattern gives a different effect. I can understand you don’t want it to look too busy, yet a large pattern taking up the space of the entire rug would be lost under a kitchen table.

I look forward to creating a canvas rug that will bring beauty to your home and stand up to your boys and anything else life has to offer!

Regards,