Formal dining rooms are probably the least used room in a house these days. In some ways they are a waste of valuable space as busy families eat their meals in super-sized kitchens or in front of the TV. I’ve seen stories of people who have turned their dining room space into home offices or play rooms for the kids.
But I like and need my dining room. The table in our kitchen breakfast nook is only big enough to seat the two of us. Whether we have one dinner guest or a big family event, the dining room table becomes center stage and a necessity. And when staycationing at home, it’s important to change things from the ordinary. Serving meals in the dining room makes for a nice change.
There is little in the dining room that requires a makeover. The table takes up most of the room’s floor space. A china cabinet holds my collection of pink transferware and other dishes. A mauve colored Queen Anne chair sits in the corner. I don’t really need a chair in the dining room. It’s here because I had no place else to put it and because it looks nice sitting in that particular corner. The color matches my displayed dishes and besides, the cat likes it.
My biggest problem is that, thanks to my husband’s favorite cat, I have some torn and tattered wallpaper that needs to be replaced but I don’t have any extra matching wallpaper to use for repairs. I could completely re-paper the room. However, I like my current wallpaper and I don’t really want to go to the trouble and expense of replacing it right now. I could replace just the bottom half where the cat has scratched and add a decorative border between the two patterns, but that really wouldn’t be any less expensive than papering the entire room.
This is where I’m going to have to put on my creativity hat in order to find a solution. I had one idea that I was kicking around for awhile. I have several odd rolls of wallpaper. With a ruler and a cutting mat I thought I could cut squares of various sizes from each of the rolls and layer them in sort of a patchwork pattern, covering the damaged sections. I was concerned that it might look tacky. But can it look any worse than it does now?
Then I realize one of my odd rolls is a realistic brick pattern and that gave me another idea. I grabbed a pair of scissors and begin to cut. Instead of a straight line of the wall paper I cut around the “bricks” to make an uneven edge. I cut pieces big enough to cover the cat scratched areas and then paste my brick sections to the wall. Voila! Repair complete. Not the ideal solution perhaps, but it will do until I get inspired to re-wallpaper the room.
Now to order a set of those plastic cat claw covers…
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