Mother necessity.

For reasons too complicated to explain, I am going to start using my formal dining table for every day dining.  Now the challenge this presents is that the seats for the chairs are fabric, and a cream color fabric at that.  If you have met my children you are fully aware that they are sloppy eaters.  (Well Lauren not so much, but Mark and Katie....they keep my washing machine in business.) 

Knowing the messiness of my children, without some intervention, I knew my chairs would soon resemble a calico fabric littered with all sorts of colorful stains and textures.  So this is what I did....

This is the plastic wrap that you see covering traffic patterns on carpet at home shows to protect it from being soiled as half a million people tour the house.  Well just in case you wanted to know, Home Depot will sell you a roll or two.   I first bought it two years ago, because the new Jeep I purchased has a light tan interior, and the third row seat in the back that folds down, had carpet on the back of the seat.  I knew the seats would primarily be folded down as I hauled stuff around, and that I would have black car carpet if I did not take measures to protect it.  Its worked like a charm for the last two years. 

So I thought why not cover my chairs?  I did just that.  It too worked like a charm.  I had to place it over the chair and then trim to edges to fit.  But now my chairs are safely protected from impending damage my children could do.

Katie loved the scraps I trimmed off.  She stuck them together and made a gate for the stairs.

This is the face you make when your brother sees your gate and decided to bust on through, breaking your gate.  (Can you blame him???!!!  Its wayyy tooooo tempting.) 

This is the victory stance when you have rebuilt your gate. 

As for me, apparently my actions of covering the carpet in my car, and the seats of my dining room chairs, makes me one of those crazy people who cover their furniture in plastic..... I would recommend long pants if you don't want to "stick" to my furniture...  See I am just encouraging people to be modest.  Really I am not crazy.