Dog Tales & DIY Tricks

Trying to keep a clean home with animals is difficult. Trying to keep a clean home with animals, two children under six and two adults who don't have the most neat or organised personality traits is almost pointless. The only point is that I do try and this month I'm making more of an effort into getting things in tip top shape. I will always be adding pieces of furniture and soft furnishings but by the end of 2014 I want to have a clean, organised and painted home that I can work from as a base. There are always areas half finished with a lot of potential but not much hope but in 2015 I don't want to be re-painting everything and re-working from the base up. However much we intend to live here for a good few more years it is still a rental house and putting so much effort in to somebody else's property can be really exhausting. At the same time I love my house so to make it look the way that I get the most inspiration and benefit from it isn't too much of an issue.

We have an issue with the dogs in that they are forever getting up the stairs. With the pug it's all about watching him to make sure he's not doing his business on the stairs because he really loves to do that even if he's just been outside but there's also the fact that having a fox red labrador can mean a lot of shedding and since there's dark carpet it can look really dirty and clogged up very quickly. In the past six months there's been a few instances of chewing on the edges of the carpet too so there's some slight fraying and I just need it to stop. I really hate looking at it whenever I walk up the stairs and I don't intend to replace it or fix it until the problem is no longer a problem. To combat this we have a stair gate at the top of the stairs which protects late night wandering children in the dark and also the dogs from getting up to our bedrooms without us being there to supervise but on the bottom of the stairs, we had more of a problem. I think we've fixed it - maybe.

The bottom of the stairs isn't wide but because the bannister isn't completely solid the tension poles on the sides of stair gates push it out so it's impossible for them to completely lock. We have this problem upstairs too but resolved it with a few layers of timber attached to the bannister. Downstairs it was a bit more difficult to achieve and so we went all DIY. Boyfriend attached three layers of timber to the wall, attached some hinges to that and a big board of wood that covers the stairway. It's on a spring so it automatically closes but I'll also be adding a little latch to the side to stop little noses prying it open should they wish to take the time to try. Sure, it's not completely attractive right now but it does do the job. I intend to paint both the timber and the wooden gate white in the next few weeks so it blends a little more into the white bannister and possibly trim some off the top and side so it's a little more level with the post. This was a quick fix up due to the fact that I brought in the professional carpet cleaners yesterday to have a good thorough spring clean and make the hall smell that little bit more fresh.

What do you think? Do you think I could get away with painting it white and leaving it? Would you add something or do something differently? Let me know!