Once every six months, we have to repaint the walls in our foyer and at the top of the kitchen stairs. These are the locations where Ayla lays most often, usually flipped on her back with her dirty feet up in the air and on the wall. In April, before we had visitors, you may remember me writing about the joys of painting and that we were thinking about using some of the plexiglass we inherited from the previous owner to cover the lower portion of the wall. Not only would this keep us from painting so often, but it allows you to actually wipe the walls down easily and Ayla seems to prefer sliding down the plastic versus the wall (which is quite amusing to watch either way.) Unfortunately we weren’t so familiar with how easy it is to work with plexiglass yet and didn’t start that project.

But with Thanksgiving on the approach, it was time to pull out the paint can and touch everything up. And since Stefan was on vacation that week anyway, he decided to find out just how complicated it would be to do the plexiglass. After building the cold frame for our salad table with plexiglass, he learned that breaking it is really not all that hard to do. You just have to give consistent pressure and make sure to fully score the location where you want to break the plexiglass about 15 times. If you miss your line just once, it’s most likely that the plexiglass will take the wrong line so be sure to use a straight-edge to make your marks.

Here’s the same corner as shown above, painted and with the plexiglass mounted. As you can see, you barely see the clear plexiglass, only the copper screws he used to mount the panels. There is still a bit of work to be done but since we have to bend the plexiglass around a couple corners, which gave us some serious issues, that part of the project has been put on hold. But at least the parts of the room where Ayla lays the most are covered.

I didn’t even notice until I photographed the plexiglass just how dirty it’s gotten already. It shouldn’t be such a big surprise since it’s been raining like crazy here and all the paths where we walk Ayla are just sludgy and muddy. Even some of the roads are covered in dirt these days so we just can’t escape the stuff. And even when you wipe doggie feet, legs, undercarriage and so on off, she’s still got dirt in her fur. It’s just something you learn to live with when you have a big dog. And now at least we don’t have to be so concerned about the mess she’s leaving behind for us to clean up.

And did I mention that this is also a plus for Mackenzie? Because now, she can draw all she wants on the bottom of the wall with dry erase markers, and it will just wipe right off. Dual purpose plexiglass…gotta love it!