Ruby Sliders: Stylish and Functional – Our Review

Last fall, I had to help my mom downgrade her home. My dad had recently passed away, and the two-story home was just too big for one person. Plus, she needs some assistance getting around these days too. It was time for a move into a smaller home and to hire an at-home nurse to help her out a few days a week.

That move was hard for a lot of reasons. If you’ve lost a parent, or are the primary caregiver to an aging parent, then you get it. But one of the most surprisingly difficult aspects of the move was getting her furniture out without causing destruction to the house! My parents bought their home in the ‘50s, and their floors are all super nice hardwood. Getting the beds, couches, tables, and random furniture items without scuffing up these beautiful, super-expensive floors was a huge process.

It only took moving one furniture item and subsequently scratching the hardwood to realize I needed to do things a little differently. I did a lot of research, and that’s how I discovered Ruby Sliders. Now, after using them for the whole moving process, I’m SO glad I found them. I would highly, highly recommend these to anyone in a similar situation or anyone with wood floors and furniture they don’t want to scratch those floors with.

What Do Ruby Sliders Do?

You know how sometimes you’ll go into a person’s home and see tennis balls on the end of their chair legs or walkers? Ruby sliders basically serve the same function. They’re little pieces of red felt (hence the name RUBY sliders) that attach to the bottom of furniture with a little sock of adhesive. The adhesive is shaped to fit over typical furniture legs, but it can also stretch out to large or unusual shapes.

Maybe if you have furniture with really strangely shaped legs, they might not work for you, but I also think you could probably cut the adhesive and finagle it to work for whatever your needs are. Personally, I found that they worked with all of the furniture I needed to move just fine.

How Do You Use Ruby Sliders?

I like these because they’re so easy to use. One package comes with 48 of them, which was more than enough for all of my moving needs. I just removed them from the box and slipped them right onto all of the furniture legs. The adhesive instantly stuck, and my floors were instantly protected. In fact, the adhesive is insanely strong – it’s industrial grade – so be sure not to stick any ruby sliders where you don’t want them to be forever! I haven’t tried to take any off, but I imagine it would be really difficult.

Once the ruby sliders were on, we could easily drag pieces of furniture across the floor without worrying about causing scuffs or scratches. They’re also soundless, which was nice – I think I would’ve gone insane if I had to listen to the squeak of dragging furniture for hours on end.

Tips for Ease of Use

My only complaint – or, I guess I should say, the thing I wish I could change about this product – is that they don’t really glide over carpeting very well. Unfortunately, I think that’s more a problem of physics rather than a problem for Ruby Sliders to figure out. The felt just creates friction against a carpet, so it becomes much more difficult to move furniture over carpeting with these on.

But, like I said, I’m not sure that’s really a problem this product could solve. I would just pay close attention to your moving strategy and try not to put these on until you’ve moved your furniture past any carpeting.

Oh, another thing to note – definitely wipe off the bottom of each piece of furniture before you apply these. I lost a couple because there were hairs or random lint on the bottom of my table legs, and when I was applying the ruby sliders, I accidentally brushed the adhesive against this debris and basically ruined the sticky part. So, be careful when you apply them.

How Much Furniture Can You Move Using Ruby Sliders?

These worked really well to help me move a bunch of furniture, but they can also be used for other situations. Once I realized how helpful they were, I recommended them to one of my friends from church, who sets up and runs a lot of the church events. She bought two packs of 64 units and put them on the bottom of all of the folding chairs she uses for these events so that the chairs would stop scuffing the linoleum floors.

I helped her out, and I think it took us 20 minutes to apply them to all of the chairs. Really not bad, considering how many of them there were. And now it’s been such a relief for her to not have to worry about scuffing the floor! It’s also been a relief to the rest of us to not have to hear that horrible screeching, scraping noise anytime you try to move a folding chair across the floor. So having these on all of the church chairs has been a win all around.

A pack of 64 is good for 16 chairs, so two 64-packs were plenty for all the chairs we’d need for church gatherings. If you’re just getting these for your home, I think the 48-pack is plenty. (It was for me.) Or maybe you only need them for one or two furniture items, in which case a 12-pack would be best. It just depends on your individual needs.

Do Ruby Sliders Work for All Flooring?

The one situation I would not recommend these in is if your home, office, or wherever you’re planning on implementing them is fully carpeted. As I mentioned earlier, it seems like they’re designed for hardwood floors only. They create friction on carpeting and actually make the whole job a lot harder. (Plus, why would you need them on a carpet?) So yeah, if you have carpet – forget about Ruby Sliders. But hardwood floor, definitely consider making a purchase.

Now my mom is all settled in her new home. It’s been a bittersweet transition period for both of us – no more of the house I grew up in, and she raised a family in. But the important thing is that she’s in a space that feels safe and manageable, and we were able to transport all of the furniture and important items into her new home without damaging anything. No scratches on either the hardwood floors I grew up on or the new floors of her smaller house, so it was a win-win.

The Ruby Sliders Round-Up

I know I’m rambling, but I really cannot say enough about this product. They’re functional, easy to use, inexpensive, and they blend right in – say goodbye to those clunky tennis balls on the bottom of your chair legs. With Ruby Sliders, no one but you will even know there’s anything underneath your furniture. They just look like an extension of the furniture leg.

If you still aren’t sure about these, I think there’s a pretty good return policy, so you can always try them out and return them for your money back if they aren’t what you were hoping for. If I had to guess, though, you’re going to be just like me – obsessed as soon as you try them out. They make life so much easier.