I have several oilcloth tablecloths - they progress/descend from dining table to garden table as they get old and faded. Cutting-edge Sanderson prints, doncha know.

And I agree with DontCallMeBaby that treating tables as disposible is a far greater crime. Get thee over to Ethical Living immediately.

Oh great - I was hoping that would be the case . Thanks!

no hemming required.

we use oilcoth because purple paint stains.

and because dd2's tremor means that everything gets spilt.

i confess to owning three patterns but i do have cloth cloth as well, and moslty for adults and visitors we just have the table....

I agree they're a bit naff but we have one anyway. We bought it after the first biro on oak table incident, and I'm converted. Once our children are old enough not to completely wreck the table we'll get rid, but in the meantime... We're on our second one; the first started to look a bit grubby after a couple of years.

We get ours fromJust Wipe who are very good and have non-shiny ones which wipe clean just as well as the shiny ones.

This is probably a dim question but here goes! If I buy some oilcloth by the metre for a tablecloth, do I have to hem it?

Great for painting sessions with the LOs, or cooking projects with them. Just wipe clean!

I don't have one and my table has lots of felt-tip pen marks on it. Was browsing here for something to protect the table, I didn't realise they were a fashion crime.

cos our table is crap

I got mine as the table already had some felt tip on it which is hell to get off and I didn't want any more.

Got it here:-

http://www.norfolktextiles.co.uk/default.asp

We have a pine dining table and as someone has previously posted, it absorbs everything.

I bought an oilcloth tablecloth from TK Maxx for about a tenner for a rectangular table. Small spots of food, yoghurt etc wipe off with a bit of kitchen towel.

I throw mine in the wash on 30 degree cycle and line dry in 2 hours. It's good to go again

Just saves your table getting ruined from, in my case, a 1 year old!

This one is particularly stylish

We should have put oilcloth on our table as our landlady is going to look like this but with added steam coming out of her ears - when she sees her (Ikea supercheap but she's very finicky) table - we're in a furnished flat. The finish has worn off where DS sits due to many spilled drinks/spilled food, and there's a couple of biro marks... Am dreading landlady's visit She hasn't been for 2 years, but due next month. Last time she came she said we hadn't been thorough enough about cleaning behind the toilet cistern. We do try, but I'm sure there'll be something...

It's completely different to covering your sofa in plastic, because that would defeat the purpose of a sofa, which is to be comfortable to sit on.

I had a table cover from John Lewis when my two were small, but it came off when they were in bed/not around.

Now they are both older I don't need it any more, but i'm thinking of putting something similar over the carpet between the bathroom & DD's room to catch the hair-dye drips....

I aspire to one as well. Haven't got one yet because I am worried, being a complete slattern that it would never get wiped and would indeed get sticky.

We use cloth which are easy to chuck in the washing machine - they don't require any elbow grease to clearn them. Mind you they usually end up stained.

I have this bookmarked for when I can make my mind up.

<chortle> and <applaus> for Mrs maidamess.
insult of the week I think

LOLO

you make me roar.

this is it, isn't it?

Do you mean your purple Wallis one? (where Joanna Trollop DEF shops)

sassy - I agree why do they do In the night garden ones that dont wipe off. I have binned then

lol
hey mrs M
did you see the ( inhales) possible school run dress

I've just bought my school run table cloth...havent you?

LOLOL

Wish I could afford £125 for a table and then bin it.

Although I dont have an oilcloth, I aspire to an oil cloth.

We have a 50p platic birthday cover that I use and wipe and then put away

oh i onyl ever bought those crayola ones

Two words.

Felt. Tips.

<glowers at dd1>

hmm can i just check these naff monitors don't wear crocs or anything from boden.

Don't care - I am middle aged and proud . I'll be getting the aga any day now - I already have the National Trust membership and the varicose veins.

Its no different to covering your sofa in plastic. Very wrong.

lol at buttercup

i like em in leggings

Oh and it's a cheap ikea table too but it's the cleaning which is tricky

LOOK AT Joianna trollopes hair

that is YOU that is

£4 from Tiger, bargain and pretty!
I bought it after DS (2.5) spilled milk for the umpteenth time and it went in between the glass and wood again = a bugger to clean.

Because I quite like having a bright red table with white polka dots, and find the idea of spending £125 on a table and 'binning it when it's knackered' far FAR naffer.

Are actual cloth ones alright in the fashion stakes?

Or do tables have to be naked?

nafferoony

they are a bit middle aged arent they?
a bit Joanna trollope

really? are they gross, then?

beacuse its naff?

have you seen how much that cheeky mare kidston charges for oil cloth? £20 a meter! shocking! why doesn't ikea do it?
grump.

or that Dunelm Mill place.

It's because they come pre-greased and with a bag full of sticky crumbs, so you don't need to go to the trouble of doing it yourself.

£125

ikea
binnable when knackered

Cath Kidston or John Lewis by the metre....I need to get out more

Where do you all buy these oilcloths of which you speak?

(I can only find old-lady floral/tartan ones )

cos we're idiots and bought a table with a glass top - it was hard work pre kids with smearing. now i shudder to think! also v noisy and ours need no help in the din at dinner stakes.

It's to make the house look like a Laura Ashley showroom. Which is what we all aspire to, as I'm sure you know.

Plus, it avoids felt-pen on wood incidents.

When I had an old pine tabletop, it absorbed what came it's way - it looked good 'distressed'.
Our current table would just look 'ruined'!

Are you offering to buy me a dining table?
Fab! [goes to look at catalogues...]

Our very practical extending oak table was battered when my parents bought it in 1975 and doesn't look better now. We do have a cloth-cloth for special occasions, though.

We have a VERY nice table top on our expensive (for us)Habitat table, but as we only have one table to serve all purposes, the oilcloth (it might not be genuine oilcloth) makes a good everyday surface to protect it from all DS's activities, stains, burns, scratches etc etc.

And it isn't sticky or grimy, I don't think.

Oh, I'm with you - our wooden table tells a story of our lives since we got it 10 years ago. Small indentations where the dc's would bang things when they were babies, a burn mark from candles during a dinner party etc. No oil cloth for me.

Have you been snooping round my house?
<<narrows eyes suspiciously>>

(they always look a bit grimy to me)

why not have a table you can show off