The Face of Trouble

Meet “Bo.” 

You’ve probably noticed his picture on my sidebar.

And you might have seen the photo of him “relaxing” on Labor Day.

You’re probably thinking, “Awwww…he’s so sweet!”

Ha! 

It’s all just an illusion. 

Let me show you what TROUBLE this sweet, innocent face is capable of getting  into!

 

 

Once upon a time, this had been SEVEN  cans of cat food.

Seven UNOPENED cans of cat food.

Seven LARGE unopened cans of cat food.

I would have loved being a fly on the wall watching him open those cans.  It looks like he became more adept at getting them open as he went along.  Notice the three cans  in the middle are totally mangled.  The one on the far right is only half mangled.  The three on the left look like he just basically “popped the top”!

Ahhhh, but I digress from the point of this post.

This is what my carpet looked like after that sweet, innocent face got done decimating those cans of cat food in my absence.

 

A little of what you see all over my carpet is cat food.

Most of it is blood from his tongue and gums, where he laid in different places and chewed those cans open. 

Don’t worry.  Although it looks like a massacre occurred here, Bo was actually fine. No worse for the wear, if you can believe that!

However, I wasn’t sure my carpet would ever be fine again  though.

I wanted to cry.

Allow me to  share with you what saved my carpet…

and Bo’s  a - - ! 

First, I pre-treated the carpet by spraying all the spots with Woolite Oxy Deep spot remover.

This stuff is so good that if I spray it on a small spot and walk away to let it sit for a few minutes, I often can’t even find the spot when I come back to wipe it up.   It seems to magically effervesce small spots away.

 

Of course, with the amount of blood and cat food stains I was dealing with in this case, the spot treatment wasn’t going to effervesce those spots away on it’s own.  It was necessary to follow up with the Woolite Oxy Deep cleaning solution in my carpet steam cleaning machine (which I absolutely could not live without because of situations like this).

 

These two products removed every trace of that blood and greasy/oily cat food.

 

Isn’t that amazing?!

 

 

Bo

Woolite Oxy Deep.

And so do I.

 

 

**Please note:  I have no affiliation with the company that makes Woolite Oxy Deep  nor have I received any compensation from them  to mention their products here.  I’m just one happy consumer of their products!

Easy, Breezy Cottage White Slipcovers & Painted Furniture

When people hear or see that I have white slipcovers on my sofa and loveseat, and most of my furniture is painted white, they always say, “Oh, I love white but I could never have it in my house because…  

and then they usually mention kids, pets, a messy husband…

or some combination thereof.

Admittedly, I don’t have any small children (and no grandchildren yet) but  we do have 2 big German Shepherds that live in the house and don’t get baths nearly as often as they should.  We also have an indoor cat. 

 

In my humble opinion,  I think white slipcovers and white, painted furniture are absolutely the most family and pet-friendly  furniture you can have.  And although my husband was initially panicked at the idea of all the white, I think he would also totally agree with me now.

Being able to wash slipcovers is  the wonderful advantage of having slipcovers instead of  upholstered furniture.  Every three or four months, I simply pull the  slipcovers off and throw them in the washing machine with a little bleach.  They come out looking and smelling so fresh and clean.   

In addition, almost all spot/stain removers are safe to use on white since you don’t have to worry about color-fastness.  You certainly can’t use bleach or just any stain remover on colored slipcovers or upholstery. 

If someone sets a glass on my white painted furniture, I don’t panic like I would if I had  wood  furniture.  In fact, I actually encourage  guests not to worry about using a coaster if there isn’t one handy.  Condensation from glasses doesn’t leave a mark like it would on wood.  A coffee or tea ring wipes right up with a damp cloth. 

We don’t hesitate to prop our  feet up on the coffee table and I don’t mind one bit if family or friends do either, if they wish!    If my painted furniture gets a little nick, chip or scratch in the paint, I simply get out the can of paint and a little paint brush and touch it up.   Of course, if you don’t mind  the distressed, worn look, nicks and chips just add more character and charm to a piece. 

One other important advantage of white painted furniture…

it doesn’t show the dust as readily as dark wood or even black painted furniture! 

Gotta love that, right?!

So, if you have always wanted white furniture but were very, very afraid because of kids, pets or a messy husband, I highly recommend easy, breezy white slipcovers and/or white painted furniture. 

 

Edited to add:  I have had a couple e-mails and comments asking for more info on my slipcovers.  When I first decided I wanted white slipcovers, I initially bought ready-made slipcovers from SureFit.  Although they were a very nice quality, they didn’t fit the style of my sofa and loveseat to my satisfaction (too much excess fabric for the skinny arms on my furniture) so I knew right then my inner “neat freak”  would not be happy with anything less than a custom made fit.  Since I don’t sew, and didn’t know a seamstress, I had the local Calico Corners store make these slipcovers. 

The fabric is a matelasse.   Calico Corners recommended it be dry cleaned but as I mentioned,  it washes  beautifully.   I've had several matelasse coverlet/quilts for the bed and I know it does have a tendency to shrink  so when the Calico Corners seamstress came to my house to cut and fit the pieces,  I told her I wanted to be able to throw the slipcovers in the washer.  She gave me 2 identical-sized pieces of the fabric to test for shrinkage.  I washed and dried one piece and then compared it to the second piece.  There was little to no shrinkage in the piece I washed but to be on the safe side, the seamstress cut the slipcovers just a little bigger anyway to allow for any possible shrinkage in the first washing.

************

Stop by to see Kathleen @ Faded Charm and the links for all the other bloggers who are sharing anything and everything  white today for “White Wednesday #12.”

 

A Lazy Labor Day

Yes, we all enjoyed our Labor Day here in My Cottage of Bliss.

Especially Bo.

How did you spend your Labor Day?

Not Ready To Say Good Bye…Part II

I know many of you love the fall months and have already started putting out the fall decor in your homes  in anticipation of the change of seasons. 

Personally,  fall is my least favorite time of year. 

There is no real obvious change of season here in Florida where I live.  We don’t get the pretty changing leaves and it will probably remain quite warm  for several more months.    More often than not,  we are still wearing shorts at Thanksgiving and the air conditioning is still on.  Since I enjoy warm weather over cold, I actually don’t mind that.

I am happiest when the summer rains have turned the trees and grass a beautiful lush and  vibrant green, and flowers are blooming abundantly.   

 

But it won’t be long  before almost everything green and colorful will slowly become a dead shade of brown.   Ick!

Once the fall months arrive, I also miss those longer days of summer and sitting on the porch swing after dinner until the sun dips below the horizon well past 8:30 p.m. 

When  we turn the clocks back an hour and  are no longer on Daylight Savings Time, it will be dark by 6:00 o’clock.   ::sigh::   It makes me feel like I should be getting ready  for bed…before dinner is even served or the dishes are done!

Another reason fall does not excite me… I am not particularly fond of the traditional autumn colors of oranges, deep burgundy, browns, and golden yellows offered in clothing and home decor.  Blah.   No offense intended  to those of you who do love those colors.  They just aren’t “me.”   I’m not comfortable wearing them or living with them.

My home is decorated mostly in a pastel color palette so it is next to impossible to incorporate the typical decorations of  scarecrows dressed in their autumn finery, Indian corn, acorns,  orange pumpkins, etc., into my home.   I am “fall decor challenged.”

 

No, I am definitely not ready to say good-bye to summer yet!

 

What about you?

Not Ready To Say Good-Bye…Part I

  

 

 

 

 

 

I’m participating a wee bit late this week in Kathleen’s “White Wednesday #11” party.

 

 

Crazy For Crown (Molding)

For as long as I can remember I have always loved great moldings but when we bought our little 50’s ranch style home in 1975, it didn’t have any moldings at all.  Not even real baseboards. 

Little by little, over the years, I have been having my husband install baseboards, and put moldings around the windows and doors.   It’s been a slow process because he hates carpentry work and I have to spread the molding projects out so he forgets the pain involved in the last one…sort of like childbirth. 

Last month I had a carpenter install crown moldings for me.  After I watched how much work went into putting up crown, even for the professional, I knew I had made a wise decision to hire the job out!

Prior to the carpenter’s arrival, I removed the old, dated wallpaper from the common wall of my living room and dining room, and repainted several rooms.

I think it is difficult to capture in a photo the difference crown molding makes in a room.  Nevertheless, here are a few before and after photos for Metamorphosis Monday.

This is one “before” view of my living room. 

Below the wallpaper has been removed, the walls have been painted a light sage green, and the crown molding has been installed. 

The paint, alone, made a big difference in the way the living room feels.  It also really made the plantation shutters look 100 times better because they no longer get lost against the old wall color, which was a very pale pink.

 

This is one wall in the kitchen.  I love the way the crown looks on all of these inside and outside corners of the soffit, and against the darker sage paint color!

This is the master bedroom.  (The ceiling is really white, not gray as it appears in the photo.)

This is the guest room/office.

Now hurry over to Between Naps on the Porch  and be ready to be inspired by some great  Metamorphosis Monday makeovers.

A Pink Saturday Birthday

Shhhhhhh…

I have  a secret. 

I’ll let you in on it but you must keep it on the QT, okay?

Today, on this Pink Saturday, someone is having a birthday.

Yep, today is my birthday. 

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Up until two days ago, I had no intention of announcing  my birthday publicly on my blog.   I’m not one to revel in a lot of fanfare, hoopla or attention. 

And I’ve long passed the age  where I get excited about my birthday and being another year older.  In fact, I’ve reached the point where I wish I could now start subtracting a year instead of adding one. 

But because this is the first birthday I have celebrated since becoming a blogger, and it just happened to fall on a Pink Saturday this year,  I wanted to  share my pretty raspberry pink-tipped birthday roses with you…

Yes you.  All of you lovely, sweet people who have stopped by to visit.  Whether this is your first time here, or if you’ve been here from the very first post, I appreciate that you have taken  time out of your busy day to spend a few minutes  with me.    Thank you.           

Now it wouldn’t be a proper  Pink Saturday Birthday  without refreshments so before you go visit our Pink Saturday hostess,  Beverly @ How Sweet the Sound, and all the other Pink Saturday participants,  please help yourself to a glass of ice cold pink lemonade…

and a bite-sized  pink fairy cake…or two.   Yum!

And remember…

if anyone should ask…

you don’t know anyone who is having a birthday today.   

Right?        

I didn’t think so.                   :::wink:::

“No Sandy Feet” … A Coastal Cottage Bathroom

My beachy bedroom makeover is not quite ready for the big reveal yet so I’d like to invite you into the other beachy room in my home…

my coastal cottage bathroom.

Our motto here is…

 

There is nothing like a nice relaxing bath to soothe away the stresses of the day.  So come on in and enjoy a long, hot soak in the whirlpool tub.

 

 

 

 

 

Feel free to light a few candles…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Help yourself to the assortment of bath salts, powders and bubble bath.

 

 

Relax and enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m sure you would like to soak longer but you’d better grab one of those fluffy towels and dry off before your fingers and toes start looking like prunes!

 

I know you don’t want to look like a prune when you stop in to visit the other participants in  the Beach Party celebration at

The Shabby Chic Cottage.