I can't tell you how much in love we are with the Util-a-Mat Reversible foam flooring that we bought a year and a half ago. As you can see in the photo, it is drying after having been freshly mopped. The cat has coughed up hairballs, decided to do the drag-butt pattern (out of disobedience and laziness, not from impacted glands), K- has lost control of her water colors, sidewalk chalk (no, we don't encourage sidewalk chalk drawing on the mat) and Play Doh, and it all cleans up like a dream.
A bonus to the flooring is that K- can play in the basement in the winter, but the flooring remains warm. Since we live in NE Ohio, it has a habit of getting very cold here in the winter. Concrete flooring in basements gets very cold.
The surface has a raised diamond pattern, but we don't find that it causes any problem. K- regularly sets her Polly Pockets or Barbies up in their habitats and has no problem. She also sets her little indoor trampoline up on it and bounces away. The trampoline doesn't slide and another bonus to the mat material is that if K- bounces off, the landing material is far softer than concrete.
The flooring has two sides. It can be the color mat side or just plain black. Hubs has a separate pack that he uses under his guitar equipment to keep it from sitting on the cold floor.
So, how much is the flooring? To do the basement area that we have there, we used three packages. At the time that we purchased it, it was about $20.00 per pack at Sam's Club. We've tried having carpeting in the basement, but between the cat and a washer leak we had once, we had to throw it away. We're fine with that. Why? Because it works for us.
Smiles in my day:
- My boss being tickled at the Funky Monkey tree that I'm busy doing. And yes Rachael, Hannah has been on my mind as I've worked on it. I'll send photos along. I believe it would be Hannah approved.
- My friend stopping in this morning and was okay with having to follow me as I did my morning chores.
- The thank you note that my brother Billy left for me in the mailbox. To those of you not in the know, my brother is just a month or so out of drying out from a relapse in drug addiction. Happily, this is the best that he has been since he was a kid. He has had to make a lot of hard choices. These are choices in a positive direction for him and once again he is in constant contact with family, by his own choice.
Have a great day!
3 comments:
We used that flooring in our classrooms when I taught second grade. The cold tiles were too much for little bums and the foam was warm and somewhat squishy. :o)
I can't WAIT to see pix of the Funky Monkey tree. :o) Thanks for thinking of us!
I've seen that flooring around, but never realized how effective it is... Great idea, and perfect for your play room (and pets!)
I'll have to look into that.
If you're interested, I'm hosting a blog carnival about JOY and would love to have you link up.... You can share anything that you've written about something that has brought joy to your life!
Hope to see you there!
I LOVE that stuff. We used to have some in our basement too. That was one of the things that was given up when we moved to DC. I loved it for all the same reasons.
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