M&M Monday

M&M's Home Decor Tips

I have wood-looking-laminate flooring. It's really great--totally scratch resistant. I've moved furniture, bookshelves, etc. across it. I vacuum & damp mop it--easy to maintain. Except. It's slippery for the girls. Millie slipped on the floor and couldn't get back up. When I tried to lift her, she whipped around with a bark & a snap at me. I'm sure she could have bitten me if she wanted to. It was enough not to make me try it again, tho! I know she did it because she was in pain; her lower back and hips are a bit creaky. I managed to maneuver one of the dog beds under her and then I slid her down the hall, ferrying her to the Land of Living Room Carpet. And it only took 45 minutes. [Side note: It's fun to slide down the hall in my socks. When my nephews came over, it's one of the first things they discovered. I think they were waiting me to tell them not to do that, but I said it was one of my favourite things to do.] Anyway, back to the conundrum:

What to do? I looked at hallway runners:

cheap ones = ugly + not-so-cheap
"nice" ones = still ugly
Conclusion: why not go for so ugly = safe-for-dogs + funny

Millie models hallway carpet. Ah, duct tape!

I found a carpet remnant for $16 & cut it in half. It almost fits the length of the hallway. I had gotten one of those transitional, just-inside-the-door mats that is now outside my bedroom door.
The whole project took more duct tape than I thought. I had to break into my special purple duct tape stash! And then I figured I could use masking tape for part of it. After all that, Mum scored me some hallway carpet runners. Haven't put them down yet. Mum has pointed out, of course, that there are special thingies you put under the carpet to stop it from sliding. Yeah, I know. But duct tape is funnier.

The main carpet is a retro-geometric sort of pattern. Here's Millie. *sigh* With one of my outside-with-the-dogs shoe. They don't ever chew them, they just go to my shoe rack & pluck one off. She looks innocent enough; all cute & dozing. But if Maggie goes near her, she gets all snarly & grumbly about the shoe.

"I'm sleeping but not really."

I moved one of my area rugs from my art studio up to the living room to put between the main carpet and the wood stove. That's the biggest part of floor that's totally covered now. But then Maggie likes to come and sit by me when I'm on the sofa--on the one patch of uncovered laminate floor. *sigh* So I put Remi's old dog beds down for her.

"I'm so cute."

Now they have carpet bases around the whole house, so I don't have to worry about them slipping and not being able to get back up. :-)

Rules

What's the deal with the duct tape? I'll get to that. Back in January, I was on the road with John Morgan. I was registering participants for the weight-loss seminar. The seminar comes with a reinforcement tape for free, but most people like to upgrade to the CD, which is an additional $10 (right now it's $5 with the summer sale). Anyway, one woman started arguing with me that the CD should be free, and who uses tapes anymore anyway, blah blah blah. So you don't want the CD now? I asked. She said, "Of course I do. But I'm going to say something to the hypnotist!" I thought, John is going to have fun with you! At the end of the seminar, she was all smiles. John said good-bye to each person at the door and as she approached, he shook her hand and said, "Mary, have you noticed that you have a few more rules than the average bear?"

We all have rules of how things should be. I had an English professor say once that the more laws we implement, the more get broken and the more criminals get created. I think with rules, often the more rules a person has, the more they set themselves up for disappointment because other people don't fit into their model of how the world should be. AND they tend to judge or worse, should on other people with their rules because "that's the way it's supposed to be." It's a patterned response that begs the question, "Says who?" And is it a useful rule? Shoulding on yourself or others is a sure recipe for creating unhappiness.

And now to the duct tape: Duct tape is for taping ducts. That's the rule. However, over the years, it has evolved into the all-purpose everything solution. I love to find examples of its creative use. That's my rule.