This is the extent of Angela’s Christmas decorating this year due to the massive amount of work to be done.  That and she is tired of dust settling on anything and everything… including a nice sparkly tree that would soon look tired and old.   Anyways, at least we have a place to put Leo’s new tennis balls.

I installed Angela’s old apartment iron grate in our alcove in the kitchen.  Here Leo will eat his food and we figured he should have something nice to look rather than just some 100+ year old bricks.  Why not some metas?

During the installation process above I destroyed one of those extremely cheap masonry bits that come with the prepackaged wall anchors and screws. Essentially, I “untwisted” the drill bit ‘twists”.

And lastly, I bought these Pine Crates from Home Depot for about $12 a pop. We got them home and Angela made them look pretty with a MinWax Red Oak 215 stain.  One will house Leo’s toys.  The other will be inverted and his water and food bowl will sit on the bottom slats in the kitchen alcove.

Before.

After.