Reusable Wet Jet Pad

I grew up handwashing floors. When we had linoleum floors, we had mops (and they're probably still out in the garage), but by the time my mom started putting me to work washing the floors occasionally, we had wood floors and were using a spray bottle with wood floor cleaner and scrubbing on our hands and knees with rags. After a few years of carpeted dorms, I got an apartment that had hardwood, linoleum and tile everywhere but the bedrooms. The space was too tight to effectively use a traditional mop and Wet Jets were new on the market. I got one and loved it. We had just enough floor space that I could use 2 pads for the entire house.

Fast forward several years later. I'm married and living in a house with all concrete floors. It's trendy, loft-like, and great in this hot Southern weather, but the dust and dirt piles up FAST. We finally got a door mat to pick up some of the dirt, but still I have to sweep every other day (if not every day). Then we got a dog. Ideally we (mostly I) wanted a short haired dog that wouldn't shed too much. Nope, our lovely Puppy Dog (we didn't name her!) is an "average" shedder of her lovely black coat. And since we didn't have a dog bed at first, she claimed the door mat as "her" space when she didn't want to flop at our feet on the concrete.

My Wet Jet just doesn't cut it anymore.

First problem: I fill up a pad within about half a room. Second problem: these pads are expensive. Third problem: I was making sweet tea and spilled it all over the kitchen while transferring it to a milk jug. My Wet Jet barely touched the sticky mess.

What I Wanted:
Clearly I needed something that was more reusable (washable?), wouldn't cost much ($0??), and would actually scrub deeper than a a disposable cloth. Solution? Last time I was home, my mom and I went through her fabric collection and I inherited a bunch of awesome fabric. One of the pieces was about 2yds of cream terry cloth. Terry cloth is great, but just not thick enough. When I got married and we got a bigger bed, all my twin bedding became, well, useless. We used some of my mattress pads as moving pads/protectors for the larger items and I haven't been sure what to do with them now. Bingo.

What I Did:
I searched online and there are some etsy artists and others that sell reusable pads that I looked at them for inspiration, but pretty much all of them use velcro to attach the pad to the unit. I didn't have any velcro in my supplies and I have an older model with a scrubber on one side I wanted to use (new ones have them in the front). I used the terry cloth for the actual cleaning side and the mattress pad part to add some padding/stability to it. After I sewed the pieces together, I noticed the crisscross pattern on the bedding and decided to stitch along that through both pieces to add stability and decoration. I added the elastic last. It wasn't REALLY needed, but I thought it'd be good to have

Update: I just used my new washable pad and it's awesome. Since my floors are in need of a serious scrubbing, I rinsed the cloth out a bunch in the middle of mopping so it could pick up more dirt. I did noticed that I put the wrong side of the bedding out; the velcro tears it up far more that it would on the other side. After rinsing it out several times, I also discovered it works great as a cleaning mitt. It's not hard to get back on to the Wet Jet, but I was rinsing it a lot and it just seemed easier. Future moppings should be much easier though. :-)