My house is certainly not a palace or a showhome. But it is a home.

I would welcome you with open arms, treat you like royalty and ensure you felt comfortable and ‘at home’. But if you are expecting something out of Architectural Digest or Homes and Country, then you would be very mistaken.

For a start, we inherited a lot of quirks with the house from previous owners who blocked in doors and knocked out archways making downstairs pretty much open plan.

An extension was built on the back of the house which we are really lucky to have and a very large living room that everyone gravitates to.

And looked like a bomb had hit it.

We have cats. Until last year there were six of them until we sadly lost three all in a week from Cat Flu. The remaining three had done a very good job on our large corner sofa; shredding the absolute hell out of every part, even though they have scratching posts at their disposal.

Cats…….

The carpet was replaced six years ago after what is referred to as ‘The Mural Incident’ just before my 40th birthday and whilst in pretty good condition with no stains or marks, the cats and baba shed hair.

A lot.

Big Split

It is sometimes easier to get down on your hands and knees with a damp rubber glove on to remove the hair, than try and hoover it up.

As is often the case, as the room already looked a mess with the shredded furniture, we didn’t then bother to make much of an effort with the rest of the room.

I mean, Dust only gets dustier, right?

Eventually I got totally sick of the situation, but didn’t have a lot of money to do anything about NOR much of an inclination as there were still three cats, which shred everything in sight.

The ‘Mural’

The cats are 14 years old though and will eventually leave us. We have no plans on replacing them at all, so this led to a bit of a brainwave.

During a recent clear-out session, I remembered the local YMCA furniture shop near to our house. My biggest issue was the destroyed corner sofa, but I didn’t want nor have a lot of money to replace it.

Getting sorted!

Why not go and have a look at the offerings at the YMCA and see if we could get something decent but relatively cheap to replace what we had?

That way we wouldn’t be gutted if the cats did any damage and could save up for a better suite once the cats had eventually passed on.

We popped down on a Sunday afternoon and there were over twenty different suites and sofas. I didn’t want to redecorate or change my colour scheme so I knew what I was looking for.

Brown, cream and teal are the colours we already have in the lounge, so I ruled out the pinks, blacks and greens.

Then I saw them. Two matching brown and cream two-seater sofas. Absolutely perfect with no marks, tears or stains. They would go perfectly with the leather two seater recliner which was in excellent condition (apart from one side section which had been shredded).

Cosy little Recliner

We arranged to buy them and collect them the next day.

Going home, we smashed the old sofa to pieces, put it all in the car for a trip to the tip and proceeded to deep clean the lounge area. I sorted out boxes of books from the shelving units and got them ready for the charity shop.

The Cats are quite happy….

Streamlining all the crap and detritus that builds up and lingers around, I made sure everything was put away in its proper home, found a new home OR put it in a box for recycling or donating.

The carpet was given a good sweeping and hoovering and everything was ready for the arrival of the new sofas.

Before the stool renovation

The footstool from the original sofa was shredded, as you can see further up. I had covered the bottom section with a furry throw but I couldn’t get a second one in order to do the top that was now in need of help.

Destructive cats

I managed to get a nice deep teal throw on Ebay for £6.00 and along with a staple gun and some sharp scissors, recovered the whole thing in a matter of a couple of hours. I managed to put in some small pleats and even hospital corners.

One half done

All in all, it came out pretty darn well and matched the new curtains and cushions perfectly.

Job Done!

As is the tendency, once you start working on one room, you end up wanting to carry on with other rooms.

This certainly was the case as my next project was going to be the dining room.

Finishing Touches (including scratching post)

The following weekend was Bank Holiday Weekend and that was going to give me time to work on that, plus get the finishing touches for the living room. What would it all end up looking like?

Till next time,

SPSG xxx