Preventing Scratches in Hardwood Floors

When you compare it to any other type of flooring material, hardwood is unfortunately the most susceptible to scratches from moving furniture such as chairs and tables. If you intend on keeping your hardwood floor for any considerable length of time, it’s important to keep it properly maintained and for potential damage to be minimized. Here are some simple solutions to prevent the majority of scratches in your flooring:

The first and most obvious solution is to just not move any furniture. This is likely for large fixtures like dining tables and heavy coffee tables. Pick out the spot where you want the table to go, place it there, and then don’t shift its position. Of course, there is always the possibility that someone will bump into the furniture at some point and leave scratches anyway, so keep that in mind. If you are worried that an accident will move the furniture, place some kind of barrier between the legs of it and the floor. Felt, cork, or rubber pads will protect your floor while allowing you to move the table if necessary. If you are confident that the furniture will not have to move, you can go so far as to add carpet tape or velcro to the bottom of the legs to secure it in place.

We understand that never moving a piece of furniture is unrealistic, especially if you have chairs that need to be pulled out and pushed back in. Luckily, the same rubber pads that can be used for tables can work just as well on a chair! You can also look into either adding wheels to the bottom of chairs and tables if they’re going to have to move, or buying furniture that already has wheels.

What if you have a piece of furniture that needs to move around the house, but you had never intended to move it after setting it down the first time? Not a problem: if you’re moving anything heavy across hardwood, you can prevent scratches in the floor by folding up a cotton towel and slipping it under the legs of the furniture. Just make sure that you have a helper to tip the furniture for you so that you don’t risk getting your fingers caught under something heavy!

– Kelly Dillon

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