Whether it is time to celebrate with friends or just time to enjoy a lovely meal with your family, your dining tables play an important part. Protecting your investment is important and relatively simple. The following are a couple ideas you might find helpful.

For an inexpensive way to protect your wood tabletop you will need a few items that are easy to find. You will need to be measuring so you will need a measuring tape, a pencil for marking out your pattern, a box cutter knife to do the cutting, some packaging tape and two tablecloths, one vinyl and one cloth and a large piece of cardboard.

As a kid I remember my grandmother carefully removing her tabletop pad for special occasions. That was actually a lot of years ago now but the custom made table pad is still available through mail order catalogs or on the Internet. These are, unfortunately, a rather expensive investment. Another solution for protecting your valuable dining table that is not expensive but takes a little time will be described here.

With a few simple steps and a little time you will have a very effective table pad without the expense. The first step is to take measurements of the top of your wood table. You will need to write down the length of the table top and the width.

The cardboard box that you collected should be large enough to cover the top of the table. It needs to be clean and dry before you work with it. The measurements you just took will now be the dimensions of the pattern you will draw onto the cardboard. With the pencil and the tape measure mark out the perimeter of the table top on the cardboard making the pattern for your tabletop pad. Once you have drawn all the lines well enough to see easily you can cut them out with the box knife cutter being careful not to harm anything underneath the cardboard as you cut. Using the patio or driveway might be a safe place to do the cutting.

Now that you have your pattern cut out of the cardboard you can place it on the top of your dining table. This is your homemade pad that will help to protect your wood table from being marred or scratched. It also serves as insulation if a hot pan is set on the table top.

To cover the cardboard, you will now use the vinyl tablecloth and with the packaging tape secure the ends of the cloth to the bottom side of the table. This will be your spill protector. No matter how careful you are there will be liquids spilled onto the tabletop and there will be rings from beverage glasses so now you don't have to worry.

This is now your new tabletop pad that will do wonders to keep your valuable wood table from harm's way. At this point it is not very stylish so put the decorator tablecloth over the table and its pad and you will have the style you want for your room plus the protection you need for your table. This method is probably the most effective way to have protection for your dining tables without spending a lot of money.