Wednesdays Helpful Pet Tip #4

I can not believe it's already Wednesday! I'm really getting behind on things around here! Maybe I need to have my tip ready beforehand and then I can post it on Wednesday mornings. That would mean I would have to stop procrastinating on ONE thing. I get so irritated with myself! I always wait until the very last moment! But hey, I'm ready! Here's my tip!
                     WHITE!
seriously, that's my tip. A few years ago I found this absolutely fantastic book! (Someday when I'm being interviewed by Oprah's magazine and they ask me to name the top five books that have made a change in my life. Well, this will be one of the books that changed my life! LOL!

ANIMAL HOUSE STYLE by Julia Szabo

before this book I was like a lot of people. I would try to decorate and pick out colors that would HIDE the pet hair and paw prints and ETC. I loved this book because it shows apartments and houses of people that have clean, almost spotless homes that are so beautiful decorated.  It showcased modern decor and homes with antiques and beautiful art and well, everything I love! And all of these gorgeous decorated homes had one BIG thing in common! Pets! and usually a lot of them! Now I find that it's been my experience that if you admit to having more than 2 dogs and a cat, well... people immediately start thinking that you must live in a flea infested, poop smelling hole. We have all seen those horror stories of  animal "collectors" living in squalor with opened cat food cans and animals poking their heads out of odd spaces and litter, trash and poop all over the floor. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewww! This book discourages using dark fabrics that make it hard to see if "something's" on it. I mean really, it IS kinda gross to be sitting on something and not be aware of what's actually ON it. Now I have always LOVED the color white (if it is a color!?) Anyway her idea was to use white in decorating.  She pointed out that if you had slipcovers in white (and a spare one on hand) you could throw it in the wash with a splash of bleach and since it's not a color or pattern, you have to worry about fading so you can just throw it into the washer as often as you want.

Now I admit, most of my furniture in the livingroom is really just covered in white sheets ( I have like 20 of them) but I have the fabric and the book from the library and as soon as I stop procrasting on that, I will be making slipcovers. She also suggested white or light floors. I have white painted floors in my bedroom and I plan on eventually painting all the floors in the house (except the laundryroom/mudroom, I'm not completely insane but...) I just love the clean look of it and the fact that if someone coughs up a hairball or has an "accident" I see it immediately and can clean it up (rather than walk into it in my stocking feet.)

I know that white's not for everyone, most of my family and friends disagree with me but...

I think it's easier and I love the way colors POP up against it!

and I love black on white,

and my black cats look stunning on it!

(But that's not why I have black cats, I mean I'm not color coding my animals...

OK, well yeah I DO have some all white cats too, but

that wasn't on purpose....

OK.. I'm not even mentioning Blue,

( I got him because he was deaf and needed a home!)

it had nothing to do with being white...

(I gave that chair to Salvation Army...I should have just slipcovered it in white!)