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The paneled wall


The entertainment center (the carpet is partially up) 3-6-02


The fairly empty entertainment center 3-6-02


The entertainment center is gone.
Note the cat pee streaks on the wall. 3-10-02


The mess behind and under the old entertainment center. 3-10-02


All the paneled wall has been removed. 3-10-02


The walls are mudded. Started 3-10, finished 3-13-02 (ran out of mud). Sanded 3-16-02.


The walls are primered. 3-16-02


The ceiling is primered. 3-16-02


The ceiling has been painted.
Note the difference between the old and the new.
The ceiling hadn't been painted since the house was built. 3-16-02


Walls are painted. 3-17-02


First part of tile has been laid. 3-18-02

The tile is Florence Porcelain, the Colorado Stone Collection. The color is "Chaparral". We went with this particular tile because it has a moisture absorption rate of less than a half a percent. Something that we feel is very important to keeping the house as urine free as possible. Brian had mentioned using pool cement for the grout, which would make it pretty water resistant, but now he says he's not going to go that way. He thought he'd found an additive for the regular grout, but it isn't what he thought. It's applied after the grout is in and he says that kind of thing is useless, I think because it will have to be reapplied after six months. I'm not quite sure which way we'll go with this. The grout color he picked out is "tobacco brown".

One thing we know for sure, we're going to do what we can to block the cats' access to areas that aren't easily cleaned. Like the top of the new entertainment center. The old one, (which obviously was the worst area for this in the home) was was heavy and cumbersome, full of splinters and very hard to move. I think it had only been pulled out from the wall once since we've lived here and that was when we first moved in and painted the walls. I was unable to clean the wall behind it. Brian had put wood up to keep the cats from getting behind it, but that didn't stop them from standing on the top and peeing against the wall, which, of course, dripped down.

We're going to be replacing all of the electrical outlets, then using these covers on the outlets. And Brian will seal the area around the cover, making it almost impossible for urine to seep down behind the outlet, into the electrical.

The door leading to the garage will probably be painted the same color as the walls. And it will have a cat flap for the cats, which will allow them to go into the garage at will and allow us to close the door. Which we haven't done in years. That should help with our energy bill.

Well, I found an additive for the grout, that is supposed to be water resistant. You use it instead of water. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed that it works.


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