why do people use those oilcloth tablecloths?

[MacaroonIncident]

why not have a table you can show off

(they always look a bit grimy to me)

Have you been snooping round my house?

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.

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.

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.

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'!

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.

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.

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

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

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

£125

ikea
binnable when knackered

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.

or that Dunelm Mill place.

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

beacuse its naff?

really? are they gross, then?

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

nafferoony

Are actual cloth ones alright in the fashion stakes?

Or do tables have to be naked?

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.

£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.

LOOK AT Joianna trollopes hair

that is YOU that is

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

lol at buttercup

i like em in leggings

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