Our Living Room: Part I

Sorry this is a late one! Zach and I have had an action-packed week! I had my breast MRI on Thursday and had the results back before I got to work that same morning. It came back negative which was a huge relief! Thanks for the good vibes! 

This weekend we attended a 1st Birthday party, surprise engagement party & a graduation party! We got to spend the day with some great friends and family.

Happy Birthday Vivian!

Congratulations Lora & Chris!

Congratulations Brooke! 

We have also entered week 3 of our living room renovation & have been spending any spare minute we have to work on getting our living room put back together. Zach and I love working together on projects like these, but it does add a burden when you have to live through this chaos. It’s really not that bad but two weeks is usually my limit. We should be done by the end of this week and I’ll hopefully have a step by step process for you next Tuesday.

Here are a few before pictures of our living room. Doesn't Rocco make a great dog model?

You may be wondering why we decided to update our living room, maybe not. Either way, that’s what this post is about. 

When we moved in, there were three rooms that had carpet. The spare bedroom, the office, and the living room. As you may already know, we have five cats. Unfortunately, my oldest cat, Sadie, has a history of peeing on carpet/rugs when she’s mad or wants something ex: going outside. I knew from our first walk through the carpet would be a problem and boy was I right. 

We keep the other carpeted rooms closed at all times to avoid any incidents but there are no doors to our open concept living room. We also believe the previous owners had some sort of pet because two of our beautiful, well- behaved, perfect cats started using the restroom in two specific corners of our living room. 

I started with all the remedies to remove the cat urine smell. 

Baking soda

White vinegar

Steam cleaning 

Specific products geared toward this exact issue

And even applying a boundary spray to keep the cats away from these areas.

Literally, nothing worked & if it did, it was temporary. They kept coming back. If you are unfamiliar with the behaviors of cats you may not know that once they mark it’s almost impossible to get them to stop. They are creatures of habit & then it becomes a competition with the other cats. So yes, we found ourselves in quite a disgusting pickle. 

Three weeks ago, we decided enough was enough and removed the carpet. I don’t know how old it was but I know we had only been living in this home for less than a year and the amount of dust, dirt & grime that this large piece of fabric collected was enough for me to realize I will never have carpet in our home again. After seeing what was under the carpet it made me slightly grateful the cats forced us to update it sooner than we planned.

We are already breathing better and our living room is starting to smell like new. I wish we had the budget to update it when we first moved in but it’s better late than never! 

To help our kitties out with these changes we have given them each their own collar with a bell & name tag, we have supplied them with proper shots and medication & they will now be free to go outside as they please. 

Hoping the new flooring, smells & freedom will prevent any future issues. Wish us luck!  

Don't forget to follow me on Instagram @always_willow and subscribe so you don't miss Part II of this post.

Always,

Erikka