SOMETIMES YOU WIN

Most of you know we have a two bedroom condo in Oshkosh, WI so we can have a bed to sleep in and a comfortable place for the three cats when we come visit the grand daughters and their parents. We learned that sleeping on cots and staying with them a week at-a-time, just wasn't good for any of us, although they were always gracious about our staying there. You know the old saying "Company and fish smell and get old after three days". So our condo is our "other" home instead of the RV which has been sold.

As we furnish the condo slowly and with not too much clutter, we tried to make good choices. I knew we needed enough seating for all of us, and although we have a nice high quality futon couch, it wasn't comfortable enough nor quite big enough and had no recliners. We looked at a Slumberland outlet store on the north side if Minneapolis and found a reasonable "L" shaped leather couch with 3 recliners and enough seating for all. So that was added to the decor and the dark brown is neutral enough to go with the room.

Our main purchase was window covering. At our MN house we have mini blinds (with lace valances) and the blinds have to be pulled up to keep the cats from breaking the narrow slats trying to get behind them. (While Beth was in college, we saw evidence of that in all the apartments with cats.) Our son has vertical blinds and the cats seemed to be able to get behind them OK. His have the little chains from blind to blind and that was a problem as they would pop those loose. We thought of drapes, but I didn't want cat hair on them and sheers were too delicate. We came to the conclusion that vertical blinds the same color as the wall would work best. We can turn them for light adjustment and the window ledge is 6" deep and two feet off the floor, so the cats often jump up, and get behind them and sun themselves and look out. They are working out so well. We got the "S" shaped verticals with a slight vine pattern in a little darker shade of white on white. It is very subtle and if I ever make the nice valances on valance boards I want Bill to make out of wood, then the windows will be really nice. We have often thought out loud what a good choice they were and how happy we are with them. Sometimes you win...