Last month Dana, from House*Tweaking contacted me about sharing our kitchen renovation as part of her on-going Ikea kitchen series.  After I did a silent scream at my desk at the fact that someone on Dana’s level found my kitchen inspirational and something that would interest her readers, I sent over some before and after photos along with answers to her questionnaire about our experience with Ikea cabinets and kitchen items. 

The post went live this morning and it’s surreal to see our kitchen on her page!  Since we updated the dining table and chairs, I took new photos, so if you want to see what our space looks like now, go check out the post!  

Months ago I talked about our new dining table purchase/assembly and I never shared “after” photos or any photos of the new chairs.

We were able to fit five chairs comfortably, I realized that on both sides of our families, there are usually gatherings of five or less, so this worked perfectly! 

The round table fits the space better than the rectangle table, and it’s easier to get in to the liquor cabinet.

The chairs are really comfortable and the plastic isn’t too rigid and allows some bend when you lean.  We haven’t had to break out the table leaf for larger gatherings yet, but I’m excited that we’re able to add more table room!

We haven’t worried about the ridges in the table top yet, but we rarely use the table, opting to use the peninsula seating for most informal meals instead.  I also bought a cheap table cloth for when my parents came into town and used that so we didn’t have to baby it the whole time.  So, I may use that until we feel like tackling filling in the grooves somehow.

I’ve got to style the top of the liquor cabinet better, but overall, I think this table and chairs makes this room officially done!

When I purchased the new rug for the bathroom it barely fit.  I mean, there was less than a half an inch movement allowed before it touched something, so we needed something to keep it from hitting anything and folding up at the corners.

The other issue was, the door (which Mike retrofitted), had a hard time swinging over it.  Mike has said he could sand down the bottom of the door (only because he loves me, why else would he create more work for himself over a rug he doesn’t even like!?), but the rug only covers half of the door, so I didn’t want to sand down too much and create a big gap under the door. 

All this to say that a rug pad was not an option.

We were out on a friend’s boat when he was talking about the mats on the boat that he sprayed to make it stick better.  I googled it when we got home and found Rug Lock.

I secretly love those infomercial videos so I watched it in awe!  I’m not sure if it’s the same stuff our friend bought, but it seemed like it did the same thing so I bought the 16 oz.  At around $40 with shipping it’s a little pricey, but that was the same cost as one nice rug pad, so I figured if it worked for at least one rug I was okay. 

There’s a couple rugs around the house that take both Mike and I to vacuum.  It’s pretty comical, we’ll give each other a look, and the one not vacuuming will know to hop on the rub and we spread our legs and use our toes to hold the corners while the other does the same and vacuums.  We do this around the house until they’re all done.

So, I had a list of the most important rugs to spray and last weekend I was able to set up sheets in the yard and sprayed the backs.  I did use painter’s tape to tape along the edges, so that I didn’t get overspray underneath.  Mike came home and yelled at me for all the sheets on the grass (how was I supposed to know that could potentially kill the lawn!) so we moved them to the deck to continue drying for the rest of the suggested 4 hours.

I was able to do 4 rugs with the 16 oz can, totaling about 47 square feet.  The website says it can do up to 50 square feet, so I was perfect. 

The second photo is actually a rug pad.  I bought a padded rug pad for the kitchen rug, and while the rug never shifted on the felt backing the rubber backing would move all over the kitchen.  Most specifically into the cabinet corner.  We were constantly pulling the rug and rug pad back into position, which was even more of a hassle because the rubber would then decide to stick to the tile and work against us.  I loved the added padding while I washed the dishes, so I decided to spray the back of the pad in hopes that it would stick for good, and it worked, it hasn’t moved an inch!

All the rugs I sprayed haven’t moved, and even passed the vacuum test!  I pulled the rug back in the bathroom and there was a little residue that stuck to the floor, but like the website said I was able to rub it off the floor and didn’t leave any damage!

We’re definitely stuck (see what I did there!) on Rug Lock and will be using them instead of those cheap-y rubber pads, and even the expensive rug pads.  It takes a little more time to spray and wait to dry, but it’s been so worth it for us.