bigfishbowl's Profile

Strand woven bamboo!!

Our family had as many as four dogs at a time in a 700 sq ft house. We've had oak, vertical grain bamboo and strand woven bamboo. The oak and VG bamboo scratched horribly, but it's been over a year and our very large dogs (100 lbs) have not put a single scratch in the strand woven bamboo.

It's incredibly hard. So hard, in fact, that we tried five different floor nailers and none of them could get a nail through the boards, so we ended up hand-drilling and nailing every nail in the floor. Our knees hurt by the time we installed it all, but it's been a great investment for us and it looks fantastic.

Oh, and there was a question about the couch. We bought it used on craigslist, but I think it was originally from Dania. Thanks!

Thanks for the great comments everyone! I'll try to keep up. :)

The branches are attached to the wall with dental floss and tiny screws.

The floors are strand woven bamboo, made using the waste product from solid bamboo products. It's an extremely water-resistant and durable material (great for our big dogs), and we like the look, but a word of caution for anyone considering this option: the planks are so hard that we couldn't find a single floor nailer that would go through them (we tried five different pneumatic nailers). We had to hand-drill and hand set every nail!

We don't have a TV. We watch movies on our computers.

We tried to incorporate the needs of our dogs as well as us in our design. One is suffering from arthritis, so the absence of stairs is good for her. The other is very energetic and he loves doing laps and chasing balls in the back yard.

Oh, and this might help with the bed-placement debate: that's a king size bed - you could easily replace it with a queen/double and be able to walk all the way around it. :)

Wow, thanks for the great comments and questions everyone! It's so exciting to see our space on AT! I'll try to answer questions as they come in.

We've found that between the counter and the kitchen table, there's plenty of work surfaces for cooking.

We have a small (two burner) induction cooktop and a microwave/convection oven. These have been more than enough for us and it makes cleaning up quick and easy.

Making the bed with one side against a wall is certainly not an issue for us! It's funny - we get questions about that and I still can't figure out why it would be an issue.

Yes, there's a curtain on one long hospital-track that covers the lower row of windows on the back of the house that continues around to provide privacy in the sleeping-area. At night when we pull the curtains it feels like we're living in a Japanese lantern and in the morning the light coming through is just lovely.