A New Rug: Men, Kids, Dogs and Nice Things Don’t Mix

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beige family room, Carpet, dogs, family room, German Shepherd, gray, grey, husband, ideas, kids, nutcrackers, rug, ruined, ruining, transitional, writing on furniture

Good news: after the kids and dogs did all the damage they could to our family room area rug, we got a new one! After I did the post Fifty Shades of Grey, I inspired myself. There are two rooms on our first floor that could use my attention, but our family room really needed a new rug asap! The nice thing about grey is that it is a neutral – the new neutral – and can blend where you wouldn’t think it could.

I actually didn’t buy the rug for this room, but am using it here for now:

The dogs seem to approve – or are laying down a “base layer” of fur for our vacuuming pleasure. And I can’t tell you how long I tried to get them out of the pictures. The first picture was the best I could do, the second was the norm!

Bad news? While we were  laying down the rug, our five year-old turned her attention to the kitchen:

Sigh…..Glad I was going to reupholster those chairs anyway

When I queried why would she do this (after the many conversations we’ve had about just writing on paper and being so good about it for a long time) she replied, “I wanted to practice writing my fives!” Huh. They have been practicing their numbers at school, although she still got a time out

Ironically, I had JUST sat the family down last night because it seems they have been carelessly destructive lately. My husband plays ball with the dogs inside the house and likes to try to make the throws interesting. He did it just yesterday, throwing a tennis ball from the family room into the hallway down the basement steps, but the dog didn’t go get it, which struck me as odd at the time. I discovered why: it broke a lamp.

Now, he also really, really likes sports, but he gets bent out of shape at certain calls. A series of “bad calls” made him so mad, he stomped his feet, which literally bent the foot rest of a leather chair that belonged to my father in a “V”. How and who managed to break a door in three places of an armoire, a cherished piece of family furniture, I’ll never know, but I have my suspicions. Same for a lovely bar stool in the kitchen.

The lamp and the bar stool, while I’m certainly not thrilled about, aren’t the end of the world. They are replaceable. It’s the family pieces that are like a knife in the heart. They are burned in the memories of my childhood. Once we had my in-laws over for a meal and for the first time had it the formal dining room, but all I could focus on was how his step father had his arm pitched around the back of the chair over the finial, supporting the weight of his entire arm. I didn’t want to be rude and ask him to not do that, but I wish I had. Sure enough, it snapped…

My husband came into our relationship with a sofa, chair, bed, some old dressers, a coffee table and his grandmother’s Victorian settee in tattered condition. When his mother saw it, she was upset and said to me, “You better not let his grandmother see that.” As a woman, she understood the sentimental value (but I did tell her it walked into my care like that!!) and how they should be treated.

Maybe it’s a gender thing or maybe it’s a nurture thing, but I am hoping this destructive streak gets better soon, especially with a new area rug in the house! Oh, if you’re wondering, my title lists the offenders in order. Yes, the dogs are the least destructive and staining of the lot. Although to be fair, we do go through quite a bit of bedding because you can’t expect them to sleep on the floor – they aren’t heathens 😉 Well, you can expect it, but they will sneak up in bed while you are asleep.