Carpet Tile Chair Mat

Little over a year ago I bought a chair mat for my desk chair. At first it was great. Then it started to get depressions from my chair being in only one spot, but it was still ok. Soon it cracked, and from there it went down hill fast. I had got one of the ones for hard floors and not for carpet. The ones for carpet have those spikes and seem to tear up the carpet just as much as not having used it in the first place.

Not wanting to spend $40 plus dollars on another mat, I went to my local Habitat for Humanity ReStore and picked up some carpet tiles. At only two Metal-Washingtons each, and my total came to less than a Paper-Lincoln. I got 9 of them, each are 18"x18", so if I wanted to I could make a 54"x54" square. Currently I am sewing the together with upholstery thread, as I don't have a better method. I punched lots of holes with my leather punch. An industrial sewing machine is something I would kill for right now.

In my search for a replacement mat I came across GLASS mats. I know that glass can be an incredibly strong material, but I also know that it seems to break at the worst of times too. Maybe they laminate the glass or maybe they use tempered glass so that if it does break you hopefully wont get cut. Either way the glass ones are $200 plus, and about 40 times more than what I wanted to part with.

I also wanted to look into using do-it-yourself wood flooring to make a mat, but I have limited wood working capabilities.

The basic idea is to lay them side by side, and sew them together so they act like one giant tile.

I've decided for the time being, I will start of with just a square mat and see where i need to go from there. The one at the top will kinda be a foot rest of sorts



Remember folks, check your local thrift/salvage for things that can be reused, it'll save you that precious moolah, and it'll give something to do.


EDIT: 5/14/13 it lasted about 10 months or so before cracking, I guess it would have worked better with something hard under it.