Windowsill rescue!

If you're expecting to read about a daring feat of heroism... then you can stop reading right now.

There's not even a fireman reference here.

I'm talking about literally rescuing a windowsill. You see, when our house was built the builder didn't want it to look like the other house built off the same plan one door down and one row over, so he bumped out our front window. Just bumped it out... a little... in like a... box.

 



 

Some people might have thought to make it a windowsill, or put some clever built in storage underneath. Not our builder. He just made a box. It's not like he has to live with it, or the horrible clear coat they finished the wood with that apparently washes off with water.

Water.

Sorry, I didn't intend this to be a bash the builder blog, and if I get started on that subject things could get out of hand real quick, so I will just move on as politely as I can.

This lovely window... box I was provided with has been serving me very well in collecting moisture and dust, the wood veneer bubbling and cracking over the years, but really did little else until I got small dogs.

Oh boy, what a treat it is to have a place for my dogs to bark at the neighbors, rip holes in the window screens and scratch at the paint I added when everything the builders applied washed away. Let me tell you, nothing made that window... box dearer to my heart than having a couple of dogs able to hop up and smear their sweet doggie nose slime all over the windows in welcoming patterns for our guests to see.

 

Every so often I scrub the glass clean and repaint the sill, just to give them a clear canvas to start their creative work again. And then, last week, as I pulled out my paint and organic glass cleaning mixture... I had an epiphany.

I have a lot of those, really, but rarely do I actually run out and act upon them.

This time I'm glad I did.

  My epiphany came in the form of vinyl wall paper. Lowe's had a beautiful grasscloth pattern by Allen and Roth that was just the right color tone and didn't scratch or dent when my daughter and I attacked the sample square on display with our nails. That reminds me... we owe Lowe's an apology for the less durable samples... Sorry, Lowe's, you might need to check your display on aisle six. Anyway, the Allen and Roth grasscloth stood up to the challenge, but we thought we would be even more clever and fill the window... box with plants that would deter the dogs from hopping up there at all.  

 

We filled my flea market find antique tool box with a variety of plants and flanked it with some baby alberta spruces that we thought were prickly enough to be added doggie deterrent...  

 

The plan worked perfectly... for about twelve hours.
  Ah well, at least it looks a lot better than before. And hopefully the nose slime will be contained to the less noticeable side areas.