Important Chair Mat-ters

The husband normally gets to shop for unglamorous things in life - like duct tape, mailboxes, tacks, tools, lawnmowers, etc. Chair mats fall into his realm as well, though they’re certainly a tier or twenty up from duct tape. Our chair mats had gotten kind of crummy and needed to be replaced, so it called for a trip to Mecca, a.k.a. Office Depot.

I went along with him for his chair mat “shopping” (I say “shopping” instead of shopping because what a lot of men do isn’t really even shopping, it’s retrieving. They go for the one thing, get the one thing and take the one thing home. No extras, no frills, no bonuses, no surprises. Not a very sporting way to go about it. ).

Although I kept getting sidetracked by Office Depot’s sexy desks and chairs, the chair mat retrieving was actually interesting. I guess I’d never given chair mats much thought, but they’re actually pretty cool. Here are a few things I picked up on, when I wasn’t getting all touchy feely with the desks:

CHAIRMAT BENEFITS:

• Protect floor.
• Protect carpet.
• Improve chair mobility.
• Reduce leg and back strain.

HOW TO CHOOSE A CHAIR MAT:

• 1. Straighten a paper clip and sink the tip into your carpet until it touches the floor and your finger and thumb touch the top of the carpet. Measure paper clip length from tip to fingers.
• 2. Measure your chair rolling area.
• 3. Determine which style you’ll want: Lip, Contour, Utility (Rectangle) or Workstation.