The bathroom project is being dragged out much more than I ever thought it would. This is partially due to us getting sick and being really busy and not have time to knock out as many tasks as we thought we would and partially because we keep finding other things to fix. About a week and a half ago we had to call a plumber to fix a leak mostly because both the knobs outside and the knobs under the sink that turn the water off no longer worked. I’m all for trying things ourselves but without the ability to turn off the water neither of us were going to attempt it. So on we go. I can’t wait to get to the accessorizing part of the project, but after painting the bathroom closet we submitted to the fact that the actual bathroom really needs a paint job as well. The previous owners decided to use a flat paint and it left the walls looking like this.

See all those tiny cracks?

And because the main readers of this blog are my dog-obsessed soon-to-be -in-laws, I will show you all this photo. Peter and I went over to our friends’ house for dinner on Saturday. In addition to cooking us a fabulous dinner, they invited our Poms over to play with theirs. Here is a group photo of the dogs with Anita and Peter working to get them to all stay still. Ours just look like black little smears. The concept of not moving is way too hard for them.

So much fun!

How was everyone else’s weekend?

So here’s our quick fix.

We keep a steady supply of dog food out on the counter in a cute glass jar and we hide the rest of it in plastic bags under the counter. We reuse the plastic bags every time we buy new dog food, but you could always use other canisters for a more eco-friendly option. It’s not genius but it definitely makes a world of differnce.

Where do you store your pet’s food? Do you repackage it like we do or do you just leave the bag?

Here it is sitting against the wall. (Please forgive the image quality. A digital camera will be our next big step since ours is obviously on its way out.)

It didn’t come with a water-proof liner but we knew that with a little work we could puppy-proof it ourselves. Here are the step by step instructions. If you’d like to do this at home, you will need the following items:

• One dog bed
• One plastic drop cloth or other type of large plastic sheeting
• One stapler
• One sheet that you are comfortable donating to your dogs
• Blankets that dogs have already sleep with

First we removed any tags that could be harmful to the dogs if they managed to get to them. We then covered the dog bed with a plastic drop cloth in the same way that you would wrap a present.

Here I am folding the edges like I would wrap a present. This doesn’t need to be perfect since you will not see it in the end result.

Staple as you go to secure the plastic. With our dogs, the fewer stray bits they have to chew on, the more likely it is that the product will stay together.

After you’ve wrapped the dog bed, flip it over so that any staples are on the bottom of the bed–far away from your sleeping little ones.

Now, take your sheet and wrap it around the bed. We chose to use a fitted sheet so that it would be more difficult for the dogs to dig up the loose ends and chew on them. Here is Théo, our youngest, checking out his new bed.

Finally, put the dog bed into the crate and cover it with their old blankets. Since the dogs have already been sleeping with the blankets, they will recognize the familiarity of their scent and perceive it to be a safe place. Here is our end result, minus the dogs’ familiar blankets, since (as I mentioned before) they’re pretty gross.

What do you think? The whole project only takes a few minutes and now we know that when they get sick in their crate, we’ll be able to clean it up without throwing the bed away. Now, if only we could get not to chew on their blankets…

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