Canine by Design

A recent knee injury has taken me from walking my pooches to putting me in front of the television a bit more than usual and I find myself just a wee bit addicted to HGTV. (Home and Garden Television for the 2 people out there that are not yet addicted) There is a design DYI show for just about every design problem a boy or gal could have! Afraid of color? They can help put color in your home! Have no money? Heck they can design on a dime or re-purpose things from other rooms for you. Need to fit 3 kids in one bedroom? Hell - they'll instruct you how to build space saving pods that suspend from the ceiling for sleeping.

Oh yes, they tackle it all...except I have found they fall a little short in the true design dilemma us Dogmoms face. How to get your home to not look like animals have taken over. I was giggling at a makeover interior design team that "incorporated" the family dog into a living room design the other day on a program. They took some of the drape fabric they used and made a matching dog bed they trimmed with marabou feathers for a "Hollywood Glamour" living room theme they designed. The dog was a labrador. I was yelling at the tv with two obvious design flaws. First off that lab is going to shred those feathers quicker than you can say "hunting breed". Secondly the fabric did not look washable and they made the freakin dog pillow as one sewn piece, not a removable cover. Rookies. One trip out in the mud one dewy morning and that bed is toast.

The garden shows are no better. I don't need to know how to plant dainty succulents between flagstone for texture on my walkways. I need to know what besides astroturf or cement will hold up on the area where the dogs leap off the deck and tear up the grass. I need to know what perennials will hold up to a 40 pound english setter laying on them like a blanket waiting for birds all afternoon.

If they had a show on how to camouflage holes that dogs dig by making herb gardens in the craters I would set my Tivo.

My whole house is designed around the four paw creatures that inhabit it. I think this is where true creative genius comes into play. Slipcovers on couches and chairs are not so much a nod to farmhouse casual, but a necessary evil with shedding dogs. My flooring is an homage to Pergo and it's non scratching surface. Carpeting to me is like Gladware containers. Sure it can used for awhile, but essentially it will become disposable so I am not investing a ton of money or fondness to it. I don't care what your carpet sales guy tells you, any brand or type will be disintegrated by dogs eventually. Put your money into a good steam cleaner and accept you'll have to replace it sooner than later. You show me a home with more than one dog and I guarantee there is a skillfully placed throw rug somewhere covering a dog-caused flooring blemish. Show me a home with a cat with intact claws and I'll show you a piece of furniture turned towards the wall to hide evidence of shredding. I know all the secrets.

My Mother-in-law's recently redesigned living room is like one of those rooms in a 1960's spy movie that converts with a touch of a button. It looks one way but is really not that way at all underneath it all. Safeguarded from her cats and their hair and claws with various booby-trapped gates and heavy slipcovers and sheets, it takes a masters degree to enter the zone or figure out how to uncover the furniture. Sadly in her efforts to keep the cats out of this room and keep it pristine she has inadvertently barred humans from entering. Or perhaps that was the intent all along with the cats being scapegoats. At any rate the room's Ethan Allen loveliness can only be enjoyed on holidays and special occasions. The front door is clicking as the last guest leaves and my Mom-in-law is already resurrecting the fortress and covering the furniture.

I just don't have that type of zeal I suppose.

I think there should be a show to demonstrate how to convert your animal destroyed home & yard into chic design. Let's say your puppy chews all the lower rungs on your wooden kitchen chairs? Well I say break out the sandpaper and chisel and damage the rest of the chair to create a primitive style wood effect. Cat has eaten your house plant down to nothing? Re-pot it into an Asian inspired container for a minimalist zen effect. Nothing says up-cycling like re- purposing the couch your Viszla ate by making the couch cushions into fun floor pillows. I also think a show on 50 ways to hide dog carpet stains using properties of feng shui would be a must-watch. Outside? Yellow spots on the lawn could be coordinated with croquet hoops as markers that you needed to "highlight" for ease of the game. Aren't you clever?

I have to go now as I have to figure out what design aesthetic I can attribute to the front curtains Caelan chewed in her frenzy to announce the garbage man was on our cul-de-sac. I'm thinking shabby-chic.