Fixing Damage to Wood Trim

A year ago I adopted a new dog. 

Then over Independence Day this year I watched my mom's new dog, Loretta, who it turns out is terrified of fireworks. Between the two of them both the door to my garage and the doorway of my spare room are sporting some impressive gouges.

Damage Rowena did to garage door.

Loretta was staying in the spare bedroom to keep her separated from Rowena since Loretta had picked up kennel cough the previous week. As a result I couldn't let her out in the house during the fireworks and she damaged her crate and scratched up the door in the spare room.

Since I have a new roommate moving in this weekend I decided to fix the gouges in her door frame (and while I was at it the door to the garage that Rowena damaged) so the room is more presentable. My dad recommended using a wood filler then repainting the trim, which turned out to be a pretty simple project.

Applied wood filler.

The wood filler is a consistency similar to play doh or a thick paste. After sanding down the wood, you can use a spreader to fill in the gouges with the wood filler and smooth it out as evenly as possible. Depending on the size of the gouges this may be easier or harder than it sounds. For a couple of the gouges in my door frame I had to let the first application of wood filler dry then apply a second layer in order to get the surface as level and smooth as possible. I also had some spots along the edge of the trim that were tricky since smoothing them with the spreader would cause the filler to be scraped away.

After letting the wood filler dry completely (which should only take a couple hours, but I just waited until the next evening) you can sand down any rough spots then repaint the area. The filler I got was a tan color that was pretty easy to cover with a couple coats of white paint. You can hardly tell there was any damage!

Before and After of door frame in spare bedroom.

After of the garage door, not much
I can do to salvage the actual door.

I have quite a few other spots around the house that can use a touch up coat of paint (but don't need wood filler), so I expect I'll be wandering around for the next few weeks freshening up my trim, windowsills, the spots in the bathroom that I missed while painting six years ago...

Rowena

Rowena

One year ago I welcomed a new roommate--Rowena.

I debated whether to adopt another dog so soon after Ollie died (he got loose and ran in front of a car early in the summer), but honestly I hated not having a dog. So I decided to move forward with adopting a new dog, and I decided to look at dogs that were closer to 30 lbs. since having a larger dog makes sense for security as well.

What I didn't think through was getting a dog that was not quite a year old and as a result to being in the shelter also had separation anxiety and is scared of crates. Add in that Rowena is part lab, part border collie (and therefore high energy) and things started out kind of rocky!

Ollie was almost six when he died, so he was starting to settle down and I was past the problems with chewing, etc. All the sudden I had a dog that not only wasn't "settled" but was able to reach things that eight-pound Ollie never could!

Rowena

I met Rowena at a pet adoption event downtown and fell in love. She did well on a leash and according to the guy who found her, was house-trained, got along with his three dogs and didn't seem interested in the neighbor's cat. That was before the shelter.

I hadn't made up my mind to adopt her and the guy couldn't keep her (four dogs is a bit much) so he took her to the Tulsa shelter.

I had never been out there before, but my youngest brother and I went to look a couple weekends later and...it's bad. As you walk into the dog section you get hit by a wall of urine-scented air, and that's without the super-sensitive sense of smell that dogs have. The dogs are in pens and in some cases sharing a pen. There was someone mopping up accidents as we walked through, but there were at least 50 dogs and no way to let them outside regularly.

When I saw Rowena there, we took her outside for a bit. She loved playing with the ball and was so excited to have some attention. I just couldn't leave her, and I'm so glad I didn't. However, she couldn't come home with me until the following Monday since the shelter had to spay her before letting her leave.

When I put her back in her pen she wouldn't even look at me. I felt AWFUL. Monday when I went to pick her up she was still on painkillers from the spaying surgery, but she stuck really close as soon as she saw me. I think she knew I was her ticket out of that place.

Part of the problem with picking up a new pet on a Monday when you work full-time is that you then have to leave them at home without supervision for the rest of the week. Tuesday went fine since she was still recovering from surgery, but Wednesday...

I decided to try crating in order to save myself some damage to the house.

Yes, my 30 lb dog crawled out
of that hole she chewed.

Then I decided to try a metal crate. I discovered Rowena trained with Houdini.

I added a latch to the door of the metal crate and tried working with her to make the crate seem like her safe place.

If I wasn't home the crate
was not a safe place.

Finally I decided she did less damage if left out than she did when crated. I might buy stock in dog toys though since I buy tons of them to keep her occupied during the day.

I de-decorated my living room temporarily since Rowena showed a serious lack of respect for books, photo albums and anything left on the tables. I also gained a new appreciation for a spotless kitchen since any dirty dishes or food items left on the counters were in peril.

My house quickly started to look like no one lived here since the bookshelves were empty and the kitchen looked pristine!

I signed Rowena up for obedience classes almost immediately. The great thing about border collies is they are scary intelligent. Rowena is so willing to learn, but the classes also helped with her leash aggression toward other dogs (another result of being in the shelter I think). She gets defensive when on a leash around other dogs, something that the socialization at obedience class helped with.

Rowena on the run.

I've also fallen in love with the dog park. My yard was plenty big for Oliver, but Rowena needs to run. Since I am not a runner, going to the dog park is awesome! She'll run with the other dogs for hours if I let her stay that long.

So many people suggested that I should take Rowena back to the shelter based on how much damage she did in those first few weeks, and while I understood what they meant it made me want to scream. She was only 11 months old, adjusting to a new situation and bored being alone so much. I knew it would get better and the idea that "returning" a pet that you made a commitment to is so acceptable really mad me mad. Maybe there wouldn't be so many shelter dogs if more people accepted the commitment that a pet is BEFORE adopting in the first place.

Rowena slowly began improving when left alone in the house and now I hardly ever come home to damaged items. There are still a lot of areas around my house that need to be fixed though, including the doorway to my garage. Since I leave through that door, it took most of the damage from Rowena's panic attacks when I left her those first few weeks. Now that she isn't actively destroying new things I feel like I can finally start fixing the damage.

Have any of you had tough adjustment periods with new pets?

Those eyes.
Rowena is not a big fan of reading.

Storage Space, A Hot Commodity

The search for space in my house is a constant battle. Part of the problem is I'm way to good at collecting new things and not as good at getting rid of things. I recently got a roommate as well which means I cleared out the spare room and have to find a new place for all the furniture and items that were in there.
One idea I had was the wrapping paper storage project I wrote about in January. While the project didn't work out exactly as expected, it definitely helped to corral my wrapping paper in an out of the way area.

I've also stored some of my kitchen items on the top of cabinets in my laundry room. I'm planning to put another shelf over the utility sink in my garage.

Another area I thought of was the corner of my L-shaped hall. My hallway doesn't have a lot of space, but lately I've been thinking of places I could capitalize on for more shelf space. I began the search for a small corner bookcase or table, but most of my internet searches came up with items that were too big or way out of my price range.

The Perfect Price
When life took some unexpected turns I decided the bookcase would have to wait, especially if the purchase was going to be in the $100-$300 range. Then I got an email from Amazon. Normally I end up deleting their emails as irrelevant, but this time a small corner bookcase for $30 caught my eye and I bought it on the spot. I even got free shipping!

I got the package and put the shelf together. The finished product is in the picture to the left.

The shape is perfect, and I like that the way it's designed means I can choose to only use some of the five included shelves. I used all five though. What I don't like is how cheaply made it is. The poles are plastic and the underside of the shelves aren't "finished." I would be more upset if I had paid more than $30.

I moved the books that I wanted to display, a small desk lamp and a couple of items with the same color scheme onto the shelves. I needed something heavier for the bottom shelf to help stabilize the bookcase, I'm thinking that one of those round "garden" balls from Lowe's might be a good there. Maybe I'll find something similar next time I paint pottery with my book club. Meanwhile I've put some more books on it, those I have plenty of.

Do you have any creative storage solutions in your house?