Another cup of (cold) tea knocked over by little feet

I have since moved house and I now have 3 children, but I can’t see me going back to having carpets downstairs anytime soon. Another weekend has gone by with what would have seen yet more stains added to a collection on the carpet, but fortunately our wooden floor was easily cleaned up. 

In the living room we normally have a rug down which gives me a little taster of how badly a carpet would survive in my house. I decided to buy a rug to make it more comfortable when the children are sitting and playing, but it hasn’t been there for 2 months now and they haven’t mentioned it. I rolled it up and put it away for Ms birthday party and it hasn’t gone back because I’m finding it easier to keep the floor clean without it. It’s actually the third rug we’ve had in the lounge since we moved in. Even without all the day to day wear our rugs have faced tough times: they have been weed on (potty training was so much fun), drinks spilt, play doh squashed in and Little has even drawn on them more than once with felt tip. 

Party aftermath

I might paint the scene of a messy house with out of control children and parents that let them do whatever they want, but it isn’t true (well the messy house bit is). 

Meals are eaten at the Dining Room table and hands wiped clean afterwards with a flannel or washed in the bathroom just a few metres from the table. Yet somehow crumbs from food end up spread through out the house. I’m not going to even mention how bad under our table gets after a messy meal. Carpet wouldn’t stand a chance.

Shoes were kept in the shoe cupboard by the back door, but after I realised my children found it too much of a challenge to take wet shoes off by the front door and carry them through the house they are now mostly kept by the front door. For some reason the girls often have to come in the house, make a lap of the lounge then go back to the front door to take their shoes off. G still walks through the house before taking his shoes off and the cat and her muddy footprints I have no control over when she comes through the cat flap. 

After the first time we caught Little drawing somewhere she shouldn’t with felt tips they were all kept well out of her reach. This felt a little unfair to M who prefers them to crayons or pencils, but looking after my soft furnishings was a higher priority. Some how Little still managed to find the occasional pen when no one else was in the room, but either she couldn’t find paper as well or she thought the rug made for a more exciting backdrop for her art.

The wee and other unmentionables were also unavoidable. There are nappies that have leaked, a potty which has spilt and a toddler who refused to wear a nappy any longer, but had no recognition of when she needed to “go”, oh how I’m looking forward to going through all that again in a couple of years.

The girls are only allowed to drink water in the lounge, yet on more than one occasion “red juice” has been spilt on the rug. We rarely ever even have red juice so it confuses me how it’s that which gets spilt. My tea and coffee frequently gets knocked over too, especially on the mornings I am tired and need it most.

We are a household that loves Playdoh and slime and I successfully manage to keep these to the Dining Room table, but small bits tend to break off and fall on to clothes or the floor. The pieces are then trodden on or carried throughout the house, but they easily come off the wooden floor.

Wooden flooring all cleaned up

I could write many more tales of what has happened in our house and how carpet wouldn’t have survived: from home birth to cooking disasters, but I think you get the idea. Where carpet would have struggled our wooden flooring has made cleaning up easy. There are a few scratches and signs of wear from many years of use, but good flooring lasts. At some point I would like to replace what we have now with a lighter wood and I have been looking at engineered wood flooring, maybe with an oak finish, but I’ll add it to the one day list, because the floor we have is still looking great. 

***Disclosure: This is a sponsored post, all thoughts and opinions are my own**