How To Avoid Damaging Your Floors When Moving Furniture

Once you’ve had your dream floors installed in your Calgary home, you need to take steps to protect them. Whether it is beautiful hardwood, lovely laminate, or tile, you can cause damage to your floors by simply moving furniture. Here we review our top tips to avoid damaging your floors when you move furniture.

Be Proactive with Pads

If you have wood or laminate floors your best course of action to protect them from furniture scrapes is to be proactive. All of your furniture should have protective pads on the feet. You just never know when a shift of the furniture can cause scrapes in harder floors like laminate or wood, or even tears on flooring such as linoleum or vinyl.

Felt pads come in a number of options and are very easy to apply. You have the pads that can be hammered into furniture legs, as well as those that are customizable and can be cut to size. The felt pads are perfect if you have something like a flat ottoman that doesn’t have legs at all. As a bonus, you’ll also find pads make it easier to slide heavy furniture around.

Don’t Slide, Lift

Whenever possible avoid sliding furniture, even if it has pads. While this is difficult with heavier furniture pieces, things such as dining room chairs should always be lifted and put in place. Remembering to do this when you are tucking your chair in once you sit is probably not always possible, but the less dragging and sliding of your furniture, the less risk there is for damaging your floors.

Replace Pads

Keep in mind you need to replace the pads once in a while. This is particularly true of adhesive felt pads that can start to peel away from the furniture feet. For the pads you nail in, they can also begin to “flatten” out which can lead to scraping from the surrounding plastic frame that holds the soft pads in place.

Use a Dolly

In the case where you are not simply shifting furniture in a small area, but instead need to physically remove an item from the room altogether, consider using a dolly. This is important for heavy items that cause the most damage. Lay down a rug is possible, so the dolly’s wheels don’t leave tracks. Dollies can also help protect your back, not just your floors.

Use Towels or Blankets

If you don’t have access to a dolly, lift your furniture and spread thick towels or blankets under the feet. This not only protects your floors but also makes it easier to slide heavy furniture further distances. Just do a test first to make sure the weight of the furniture is not so heavy it actually will tear through the blankets and still scratch your floor.

Another tip to keep the soft surfaces under the feet of the furniture is to use some kind of rubber between the feet and towels/blankets. Because you might push the furniture right off the blanket and cause even more damage due to the force, this added step provides even more protection should the furniture slide off the blanket.

Remove Debris

It’s hard to imagine something as small as a grain of sand or dirt causing damage to your hard floors. However, the grit in hand with weight puts enough pressure on your floors to cause noticeable damage. In fact, if you find your floors have light, tiny scratches across the surface it could be caused by the small particles of heavier debris that tends to build up on floors and under furniture. In order to avoid these light surface scratches, always clean your floors before you attempt to move heavy furniture. Sweep and mop to get up as many particles as possible, then you can lay your blankets or towels down with less fear of digging dirt into the floor and causing damage.

Reduce Rambunctious Play

When kids get too rambunctious, they can jump on furniture or fall against it causing it to shift. This in turn can damage your floors. They might also knock over heavy objects like lamps which can also damage the floors. In areas with lots of furniture, ornaments, and table lamps, try to make it an off-limit spot for rambunctious play. While this can be difficult, if you establish it as a house rule, you will at least reduce the risk of things getting knocked onto or pushed across the floors.

While sliding heavy furniture across the floors can’t always be avoided, using these tips will provide protection from scrapes and scratches that can ruin the look of your new hardwood flooring Calgary.