Dogability Ramp v2.0

Back in January I built a little handicap ramp for my elderly doggo, Shelly, who has bad back knees.  She's in great health in general, it's just that she's the dog equivalent of 96 years old.  She couldn't step down from the threshhold onto the patio at the old house, and would often just fall out the door to the outside.  The ramp made all the difference in the world, and it worked great...right up until we moved house. So, over the weekend, I built her a new one.

The plan - in which about half of the measurements are off, but I fixed them as I worked. 

Here's the old ramp.  It was covered with an Ikea bathmat for traction (which constantly slipped off and had to be adjusted daily). The structure, if you want to call it that, was just a leftover piece of plywood screwed to a 2x4 stack of 2" sticks.  It wasn't stable anymore, and without a flat landing, and because of the very steep slope,  the front of the dog was headed downhill before the back of the dog even got out of the door - which caused her to fall and smack her face on the ground. :( 

The new ramp:

• is an inch taller
• has a complete frame with internal support to prevent the ramp sagging
• has a 14" landing to step out onto before going down (for dogs' and humans' safety), and 
• has a non-skid coating all the way around for traction for the dogs and to prevent the ramp sliding on the patio surface

LR-:  parts cut out;  frame assembled; frame clad with plywood

After hemming and hawing over how best to make this new ramp grippy so Shelly won't slide down it (stair tread safety tape, another math mat, adhesive non-skid shower floor stickers, etc.), I opted to coat the entire thing in Rustoleum's Truck Bed Liner spray.  It's solid stuff, and two coats of it were enough to pretty effectively rubberize the entire surface, making it slip-proof.  It was also much cheaper than any other options, at $7 per can.

Turns out, even grippy truck bed liner spray was too slippery for Ol' Sheller...or maybe it's just that she just doesn't like new things.  Either way, neither she nor Daisy would walk on the ramp AT ALL. Shelly felt trapped outdoors, and Daisy just jumped over the whole thing, which was pretty impressive, I have to say.

So, I picked up a gigantic, $20 shop rug from Blowe's, and cut a piece from it to the shape of the ramp.  Now both dogs use it as if it'd always been there. Whew!

Sure, the thing is huge, dark, and kind of an eyesore. But it helps my dog. And it's awfully comfortable to walk up and down for me, too.  I'm no spring chicken myself, you know? The landing at the top makes a HUGE difference in walkability and comfort.  I wish I'd thought to make it wider, as wide as the door, but I was working with the size plywood I had.   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

Incidentally, this is both (a) what I looked like while I was building and spraying the ramp; and (b) how I looked when my new duplex-neighbors rolled up to their new place for the first time.  HR! R'M LRRA!!  *gloved handshake* 

That's all, folks! 

♥♥ Dog of my heart ♥♥

Leafy Goodness

Work on the bathroom continues.  Thankfully, it's been operational for a few days now, and we're just waiting for the crew to come back towards the end of this week to finish the cosmetic details (trim, wall texture, paint).

Meanwhile, I thought I'd show off my favorite spot in the house:  the back patio.  It's nothing fancy, it's just relaxing, pretty, and unbelievably comfortable. 

Just enough shade, just enough light, and lots of turquoise and green.

I literally dumped all of my houseplants out here when we moved, since there wasn't enough space near the windows inside.

It was accidental, but the result is a soft, green patio space I LOVE to relax in in the evenings.

Daisy says hi.

I may hang one or two of the plants, just to keep the entire patio from happening on the ground.  Maybe a bell. 

Definitely some string lights. 

Further down the side yard (I promise I wasn't just backing down the property with a camera in hand, lol), it's...less attractive.  

Definitely in need of some hose management.  

Other than that...?  I haven't had a chance to even think about it yet. 

Turn and face the other way, and there's the yard. 

Shaded, green, sheltered, and quiet. 

The backyard is actually shaped like this, which is weird.  

But it's tiny, so, easy to mow.  (I mean, I don't have to mow it, but I imagine it's easy to do). 

The other day it rained, and this little green fox-face appeared in the algae on the wood of the fence near the patio area.  Hee! 

I was worried that my indoor plants wouldn't survive the transition to the patio, but not only have they all come through like champs, some are even thriving out there - including this wee Jade plant, which came completely out of its pot and was kicking around the floor of my car all afternoon, and which I just shoved back into the dirt with my thumb.  Just a few days later, and it's totally happy.  Yay! 

That's all the patio I've got for now; I'll be back soon with house pics, and maybe updates to the patio.  See ya! 

A Small Project With a Huge Impact

an Ikea Hack in the making

About a billion years ago (2015?) I purchased a SVARTÅSEN laptop table from Ikea.  It was awesome!  A little personal workspace - for my laptop, or my art, my nails, whatever I needed.

Problem is, moving into the house was so hectic, that this little thing got left outside, forgotten for several weeks, in the rain.  No big deal, though, right?  The top is plastic.

Except it turns out it wasn't plastic - it was laminated fiberboard, as I discovered upon turning this thing over to find a big, rotten mess.  Oops.

Not to worry:  I had a couple of small, wide boards left over from the built-in bookshelf project, and one of them just happened to be exactly as wide and deep as the Ikea Svartasen top.  I didn't even bother with copying the shape, I just used the entire board, in the hopes that the extra weight wouldn't unbalance the table (it doesn't) and that the new corners would give me more room to work (they do). 

(pay no attention to the hideous denim couch)

Here's the "new table", after I sanded, stained, and sealed the board, and screwed it onto the existing base.

I swapped the coffee table for a smaller one, too, and between these two tables taking up far less space than before, there's plenty of room for my elderly doggo, Shelly, to walk around, and lay down next to me on the floor.

The big rectangle is SO much better to work on than the little roundy-triangle shape the table came with!  It feels humongous, and it's nice to be able to spread out while I'm working. 

The little clip-on LED task light from Ikea  that's clamped to the table is REALLY BRIGHT, so I made a little lampshade out of a scrap of printer paper, to keep the light on my work and not in my eyes. It looks silly, but it works!

Cyclamen, 1-28-18

Just in case anyone's curious, this is the drawing on the table in the sketchbook on the table.  The little wonky leaf cracks me up - I was trying to remember how the patterns go without looking at the actual plant, and failed miserably.  I love mistakes like this, though; I love seeing them in old sketchbooks, and seeing how far I've come from those old drawings.

I have a weird urge to paint something cool on the surface of my "new" table.  I'll let you know if I do.

More soon!

Accessibility Design for Doggos

The time has come, my furry friend, to put you up on blocks.

No wait, scratch that.

This is Shelly! 

Shelly is 15 (approx. 90 in human years, for a doge her weight/age/breed).  She old.  And her poor joints - especially her knees - have been aching her something fierce this past year.  At her vet's urging, she went on a diet about a month ago, and began taking supplements for her joints.  It's helped quite a bit already; but the step down from the back door into the patio area was still really difficult for her.  Watching my girl try and try and try, and shake, and stumble, was just too heart-breaking!

So, a few weeks ago, I rounded up some scraps from the garage - a leftover shelf board from the built-in shelf project and a couple of short 2x4s - and made my poor doge a handicap ramp.  It's a very simple design - just a board on top of a 2x4 with another 2x4 under the middle for support.  Here's my very detailed scale diagram, which I made during the planning process:

Both of the doges were vv heckin confuse:

"wut"

After many minutes of tentative tries, first with one foot, then another - and Daisy finally just leaping over the thing - I realized that they were confused because the smooth wood was too slippery.  I dropped a soft bathmat onto it (with a non-slip backing), and that solved the problem.  It took Shelldog a couple of days to get used to it; now she trots up and down the ramp with ease.

bathmat is...bathmatty.

Although this works great for the dogs, I've since discovered that the ramp is WAY too short to be safe for humans.  The angle is far too steep.  For now, it works for Shelly, and that was the point.  Sometime before the warmer weather shows up, though, I'd like to replace the ramp with a much longer one, with a proper non-skid surface on top, so that neither Shelly nor I ends up on our face on the ground.

More soon!

More Blue Things

I'd been sort of half-assedly keeping an eye out for an affordable, blue rug for my room for years, but never found one that really caught my eye (that wasn't also ridiculously expensive). 

I finally found the right one last weekend at Target, when I wasn't even looking for rugs (isn't that the way it always happens?)  Hooray!  It's this one, if you're curious.

At 5x7', it doesn't cover much of the floor under the bed, but that's fine by me - it covers exactly the areas that I walk on, which is all I needed. 

A worn-looking pattern on a brand-new, fluffy, soft rug is a bit silly, I think, but I love it anyway.  And I adore the colors. 

I don't know how much Daisy understands about cameras and photography, but she sure gets RIGHT in front of me every time I whip it out.  Today, she would like you to know that she has an itch.  Dork dog.

The @#$%@#!! Living Room Ceiling

Well, guys, I finally did it.  I painted the goddamned living room ceiling.

I started the ceiling project in 2012 - three years ago - with my then-master bedroom, followed by the dining room, kitchen, hallways, and eventually the guest bath and two small bedrooms as I re-made them a year ago when Sylvan moved in.  By the time that I got to the living room, I was out of steam, out of paint, out of time in which to work, and injured, to boot.  (I'm still injured, but fuck it).

The holiday weekend past gave me a much-needed break from working two jobs and filling every spare second of time with sleep, depression, and sewing projects (my Very Last Commission Ever is going up on the SCA blog shortly - it's a doozy).  What'd I do for Thanksgiving?  I painted the goddamned living room ceiling!  Yay!

Halfway there. Bye-bye, stupid blue ceiling that turned the whole house
into a cave. The paint is [two coats of] a self-priming latex interior which
I mixed to match the other ceilings in the house ("White Clay" by Behr).
The kitchen cabinets are the same color).

The "clean end" of the room (the other end still had paint stuff
all over it).  I love the feeling of height this gives the room.

And I adore this little corner.  Corner windows: check. 
Table fulla plants: check. Dog sleeping under the table:
heehee. 

YAY!

Okay, so, technically there IS still one room I haven't gotten around to yet, ceiling-wise: the master bath.  But I have plans for the entire master suite (which is now a gigantic craft room), and I'm not touching ANYTHING in there until I'm ready to do the whole room (and have time, and money, and my arm's not trying to fall off, and I'm no longer working two jobs, which I still am at present. Ugh).  

Shelly, the Biggest Derp.

P.S.:  Oh!  Idk if you noticed (does anybody even read this horrible blog? Probably not, but it's still fun to do), but I also rearranged all the furniture.  Pics of all very soon, I promise.

.
.

Raven

I'm back three days early from my SCA trip.  While my allergies virtually disappear every time I leave central Texas (thank goodness), the humidity in Mississippi kept my asthma topped out so badly that I could barely leave camp by Wednesday morning/Tuesday evening. I also dislocated my right collarbone early in the week.

While I was gone, my elderly dog, Raven, was suddenly hit by all of his health issues (some known, mostly unknown) exploded all at once.  He spent two days in the hospital.  I packed up camp Wednesday night and hit the road Thursday morning, driving straight from Gulf Wars to the emergency vet clinic, where I spent a last couple of hours with him before he went to sleep for the last time.

Between dog issues and health issues, please excuse my absence from this blog for a bit longer, while I spend some time on both emotional and physical healing.

Raven
August 2001 - March 19th, 2015

So This Happened.

I had every intention springing a freshly-painted guest bathroom on you today, but alas, instead of painting last night (after weather and traffic and the thing I'm about to share with you kept me from going to do a craft night thing with some buddies last night, argh), I came home to find this:



...Wait, wait, lemme back up.  Remember this pic from the other day?

I'm dyeing the Surya rug that I won a couple of years ago.  Same process as I used for the black wing chair, which came out really well.  That job was fast, easy, and the color has never once rubbed off.

This time, however, instead of Rit dye, I'm using a brand called Jacquard (because a friend gave it to me, so I've been playing with all the colors).  It's meant for protein fibers like wool and silk, and is also supposed to do a great job on nylon and polyester - and this rug is wool and poly.

I'm not sure why the dye is coming out;  I suspect because I just WAY oversaturated it in an effort to make sure it soaked all the way through the fibers.  But anyhow, though I placed a bunch of random furniture on it yesterday while I was at work to keep the animals off of it, just in case, I came home to this:

Daisy was really confused as to what I thought was so funny.  And then she got a bit annoyed with me for taking so many pictures of her (these were the only two that weren't just a total blur).

One no wait, two, THREE dog baths later - because after I washed Daisy, I discovered that Shelly's face was blue, so I washed her, too; and then I washed Raven because even though he's black and I couldn't see any dye, I figured he must be covered, too - and he was - I threw a tarp over the rug and then filled it with furniture and plastic tubs to keep it in place, so that I won't find blue animals in my house again this evening.

I'm going to borrow that carpet cleaner from that friend again this evening, and use it to wash the excess dye out of the rug.

Hopefully this story will have a happy ending.  In the meantime, please laugh at my blue dog.  I bust out laughing every time I look at the pictures, hehe.


.

Stuff N Thing, Part Troix

Before:  

*DRUMROLLLLLLL*

After:  

Coffee table.


The story is, and you got some of it a while back, that my existing coffee table, though lovely, and dear to my heart, was just too large for the current living room arrangement, and the furniture therein.  I plan to keep it, though I don't know yet what I'll do with it - probably just store it until someday when my living room expands again, or something.

Meanwhile, between an old trunk which became a shelf, (and then another shelf), a bulk-trash-day side table find, and a whole bunch of spray paint, a new, smaller coffee table was born.

the new table receives a cat scan

The dog loves it.  Her favorite spot in the house was under the coffee table, and I was worried that the new one would be too short for her to get beneath, but it works great for her.  Hee.

Truth:  it IS a bit small for the couch, LOL.  But honestly, functionally, it's *exactly* the right size.  And it's pretty.  And it looks awesome with the wing chair and the little gold side table between it and the couch.  Even though it makes the couch look enormous, I really love my new wee coffee table.  (And to be honest, the couch doesn't look so large without a bunch of old blankets draped over it.  Hopefully there's slipcover news in the near future).

I really  should think up a tag/label for "furniture that's been cobbled together from parts cannibalized from parts of other stuff."  But shorter.

Aside:  No shit, a friend of an ex, years ago, was the WORST at mis-using words.  One night while the boys were gaming, I overheard him describing a pirate ship that had been "galvanized" from parts of other ships, and I just could NOT keep from bursting out laughing.  I was dying laughing, and yes, I had to explain why - and then I had to explain what "galvanized" and "cannibalized" meant, and he didn't believe me,  and he was SO MAD.  Shitforbrains. 

Four Hundredth Verse: Same As the First

Well, I spent the middle of the week sick.  Again.  Food poisoning this time.  Did I break a mirror and forget or something?  Not throw spilled salt over my left shoulder?  SHEESH.  This year can die in a fire.

No, wait - no fires.  *knocks wood*

And now you all think I'm superstitious, lol.

I DO actually have another chair to show you, not that I have pictures yet.  But soon.  And after this weekend, a few more small projects around the house, too.

In the meantime, let me share with you some of the fuzzier aspects of my morning routine:

This is how I wake up every morning.   Daisy's very polite, quiet, and gentle;
and she waits for the alarm to go off first.  (Her brother, on the other hand,
has, at this point, been jumping up and down and panting as loud as he can
for like half an hour.  I ignore him).  

Evie (our smartest cat, I say with great sarcasm), gets stuck in the sheers...
again...while trying to get from the windowsill to the nightstand to walk on
my hair, first thing in the morning...

...and then gives up and sits down, to wait for me to help her.  She's an awfully
sweet cat.  Not too bright, though. 

.

Tree Maintenance

Last month, I don't remember if I mentioned it - I sure as heck didn't post any pictures, because I forgot to take any (d'oh!) - I pruned that big Mulberry tree in the backyard.  It had grown about five million water sprouts (small, weak branch-lets that grow from the main branches, and are pretty much useless - at best they make a tree look ragged, at worst they can actually cause structural damage, and are highly prone to disease and insect infestation).   The sprouts had grown so long that they were dragging the ground on all sides, and the tree looked like a giant, green, hairy lollipop.  NOT GOOD.

Today, as I had the day off from work, I did the same thing to the Mexican Orchid Tree:

Before: 

This is the MOT before pruning.  It's basically just a giant mound of plant.

It's eight feet wide.  I am not even kidding.

Witness also the roll of hardware fencing sitting next to it, that I never put away after re-doing the porch trellis.

In fact, the black thing standing up against the house on the right is the old trellis.  Way to put your toys away when you're done with them, me!  Ugh.










During:

Hi, Raven!  I had to take this picture twice. Daisy was pooping
behind the tree the first time and I didn't notice.  Ewwww.

Fact: it's 113º out today.  

This is the part where I get most of the heavy pruning done and go sit inside in the a/c for thirty minutes before I can finish, so I don't DIE.

Most of the main branches that had grown out sideways, or up and then bent down, have been removed at this point.












After:

you can kinda see the similar shape of the
Mulberry in this pic, too. 

All finished, yay!  *sweat*sweat*sweat*


All the mini-sprouts have been pruned out as well, and all the smaller branches that were growing sideways or down.  I've also cut out all the suckers that were popping up from the ground around the plant, and removed some of the thick stumpy branch-ends that were left over in the crown of the plant from branches I cut off last year.  (I forgot they were there - the bush covered them up!)

I raked the ground flat, got rid of the mound of dead leaves carpeting the ground under the tree, and swept the patio stones that were covered up by the tree - you can see here that they were never taken up and re-arranged when I did the circles pattern with the stones last year.  I'm AWESOME at being thorough, aren't I?  Yeesh.

This thing was HUGE, you guys.  There's a nearly-perfectly-circular area around the MOT where there's no grass at all, even between the stones on the patio.  You can't see it in the pic, but there's also a Garlic Chives plant under the left side that I thought had died long ago.  Nope!  It just got eaten by the tree.

Raven, in his search for a cool patch of ground to lay in, has dug two dog-shaped holes under this thing, too.  SIGH.  Next time I feel like braving the blistering central Texas heat, I'll dig out the compost bin and fill the holes, then cover the area with some more of these patio stones to keep him from doing it again and possibly damaging the tree.

I was bitten by a spider while I was pruning.  Yay!  I wonder if I'll get super-powers now.




.

Spring Cleaning?

I keep seeing these pop up on blogs this week, so I thought I'd do my own slightly-snarkier and personalized version.  Not to give YOU advice, just to mutter to myself "out loud" (as it were) and in public.

1.  Wash the dog.   I have three 50lb dogs.  YOU wash them if you want them clean.

Actually, Raven's on my to-do list for the back half of this month:  he's a hair farm, and I'm *done* trying to keep this dog clipped myself.  He's up for his shots, so as soon as he's got them all up-to-date, he's going to the store for a professional cut, I don't care how much I have to pay for it.  I'm sick of pulling burrs and dreadlocks out of this dog's fur.

2.  Clean the windows.  I DO actually "do windows", and usually I do it this time of year.  I didn't last year, though...or the year before.  Whoops.  They're a bit manky.  Someone gave me a really nifty car washing brush tool once that hooks up with the end of a garden hose - you can put soap or liquid wax into it if you want to, and the handle extends to like six feet.  Really nifty tool.  Do I wash my car, like, ever?  Nope.  But it's awesome on windows!

3.  Cobweb patrol!  Yeah, I admit it:  my house is crawling with cobs.

*ba-dump-CSH!* 

And I DO run the long-handled duster around the ceiling and doorways more than once a year, but MAN that crap builds up, with all the hairy animals that bring dust and other junk in from the backyard all day long.

4.  Deal with built-up piles of clutter.  Also something I actually do more than once a year - otherwise I'd live in a dumpster.  But I did just recently tidy up and re-organize the laundry room that I spent all that time and effort to sort-of re-model two years ago. (Yeesh, has it been that long?)

I'm also in the middle of cleaning up and re-organizing the garage, and dealing with half-finished projects out there.  The next step (a new wall o' shelves) is going to be a doozy, though. Stay tuned.

not my actual house,
thank goodness

5.  Wipe up built-up fingerprints on wall switches, hallway corners, and around doorknobs.

Yeah, it's probably time to do that, actually.  Just because most of my walls are painted gray doesn't mean that manky crap doesn't show.  Bleh.








Also on my Spring Cleaning list:

• take down all the draperies in the house and run them all through the washer.  I do this about twice a year, actually, for my allergies.  I don't use curtains I can't put into the washing machine for exactly this reason. 
• fireplace cleanup - already done, actually. 
• Bleach and re-seal the grout in the tiled areas of the house.  I used to do this every Spring, but I haven't in about three years.  It needs it, though.  

And some maintenance items that need to be dealt with soon, or else: 

• the deadbolt on the nifty new storm door I installed a few weeks ago is suddenly not working, for some reason.  I needed to take the cylinder out and take it to the hardware store to have it re-keyed anyway;  I'll have them look at it while I'm there.  
• Another door issue: the "temporary" gate I put up over a hallway door to keep the dogs out of "Catland" (where the food, water, and litterboxes live) has now been in place for nearly FOUR YEARS.  And it's falling apart, of course, because it was never meant to last this long or put up with the abuse it's gotten over the years.  It's time to get off my ass and put the real solution that I've always meant to get around to, into place.  
• Two years ago, I scrubbed, patched, and re-painted all of the baseboard trim in the entire house...except for the dining room.  Sigh.  
• Oh, and the guest bathroom, too, and the paint on the trim in there is yellowed and chipped.  It needs to be re-done, especially since I re-painted the room not long ago, which just made the old trim look even worse than it did. 

And the garden...oh, don't even get me started. 

.