Running Down the Hallway

So y'all know by now that we have 2 cats: Bella and Fiona. The cats are both fed in the master bedroom, which is at the end of the hall. So every time we walk down the hall, or even toward the hall, the cats think we are going back to the bedroom to feed them, and they run at full speed down the hall and slide on the turn into the bedroom. It started out as really cute and funny, until we noticed that if you catch the hardwood floor in just the right light, you can see where their claws have scratched up the floor all up and down the hallway.

J's solution to the problem: de-claw the cats. Since they are both too old for that procedure, we needed a better plan: rugs. Runners, to be more specific.

As anyone who has been shopping for rugs lately knows, they aren't cheap. And the hallway is just over 12' long, so this was bound to be a costly fix. Even at IKEA, a 6' runner we liked was $30 (not to mention, was out of stock!). At Target, I found a beautiful 7' runner for $50...yikes!

That's when I remembered that I had seen some runners on a clearance end cap at Target. They were long and narrow and were called "kitchen runners." They were originally $30, marked down to $21 when I first saw them a few weeks ago. When J and I went back to Target this last Saturday, they still had a few left and they had been marked down to just $15...score! We grabbed 3 and ran for the checkouts before anyone else could nab them up.

We brought them home and I was so excited to lay the three 4' runners down the hall toward the bedrooms, but then we realized that the rugs needed rug pads in order to not slide around on the hardwood floors. Also, the backs of the rugs felt a little rough, so we didn't want them to scratch the floors either. So, I began to piece together some pieces of shelf liner to lay under the rugs and make sure none of the rough backing touched the hardwood.

Then J realized that every time we have to sweep the floors (which is quite often, since the cats' litter boxes are in the hall closet and they kick litter everywhere on their way out of the "ladies room"), we would have to lift up the rugs and the pieces of rug pad, and then replace them all when we're done sweeping. In short: we needed a way to affix the rug pads (i.e. shelf liners) to the bottoms of the rugs. I thought about hot glue, but I knew that I would burn my fingers while pressing the rug pads onto the bottom of the rugs. So we went with Aleene's Tacky Glue. It took a bit longer to dry, but I think it was worth not burning my fingers.

Basically, I just turned the rugs upside down and cut pieces of shelf liner to fit.

 Then I squeezed a thin line of glue around the outline of each piece, and a few scribbles in the middle as well.

Then I lightly pressed on the liner until it felt like it had been "grabbed" by the glue. I just repeated that until I had finished all three rugs. I used a little over 3 rolls of shelf liner from the Dollar Tree for this whole project.

We let the rugs dry upside-down overnight, to make sure we didn't end up with any rugs glued to the floor :) Then we just placed them in the hall, leaving a few inches between each rug to make the spacing look more on-purpose. We felt like if we had butted them all together as if they were one long runner, we would constantly be adjusting them when they slip apart, etc. This way it looks like they're supposed to be that way!

For $45 for the rugs and $4 for the pads, I think it works just fine.

The cats are still getting used to walking on the rugs...right now, they're actually running along-side the rugs, but we think/hope they'll get the hang of it soon enough!