Project Rugs: How to Make a Dog Happy

Work on decorating the 1-year old house acquisition continues.

The latest projects have included photos, curtains and rugs. There was printing and framing a favorite picture of the mountains to hang on the walls. It was one of the chance opportunities where the light was just fantastic: slightly overcast with sunrays peeking out to light up just Mount Pelmo in all its massive glory. Now we can look at that scene everyday from our dining room wall.

Then the new bathroom curtain was installed with a handmade lace insert crafted by my mother-in-law. We took the bathroom tile pattern and turned it into a lace motif for a custom curtain.

However the most important money went into buying rugs. We waited a full year to get one for the living room so it's just perfect. After it was rolled out, it took the dog exactly 30 seconds to plop down on the new woolly floor feature. He treats it like his own personal extended bed area. It's the plushest rug in the house so he obviously spends the most time there. And now that the spring sun is out? We also have the dog camping out on the other new rug on the terrace. It was officially bought to add some color to the outdoor section of the house and cover some awful tiling. But the dog thinks every rug is for his canine comfort. He dedicates at least 20 minutes a day soaking up the sun on the terrace carpet's bright orange design.

Two more things to cross off the list of house 2011 projects.

Oh, and one very happy and comfortable dog.

The Unfinished Cork Project

Shortly after throwing away a bag full of supposedly useless wine corks, I received a gift in the mail: a wooden frame to use to make a big cork hot plate. The idea is that you fill in the center area with all the corks you would otherwise throw away and have a unique hot plate to show for it.

That was 2 (or even 3?) years ago. I don't remember exactly. I started to collect the corks again. But in the meantime the wine industry changed gears. It stopped making wine stoppers out of cork, using a plastic substitute instead. Perhaps it was for environmental reasons, like saving the cork trees from over harvesting. Or maybe the aziende agrigole realized that there was no risk is selling a bad bottle that tasted like cork without real cork stoppers. Anyway, the fact remains that it has become virtually impossible to regularly find real cork, even in Italy.

This is a picture of the state of my cork project:

I buy wine. I live in Italy, so I often drink wine. I like a glass at dinner. But here I am with only these corks to count after all these years! I need double that to finish the plate! I even thought of asking a café or enoteca (wine shop) owner to pass on some of her stoppers to speed up the process, but then my plate would lack my own history in its completion. I want to know I actually drank those different wines featured by the corks. I also want to see the visual variety of the various brands. The enoteca owner will probably just give me dozens of corks from the same brands of tocai and merlot (popular regional choices).

The funny thing is that now a new labor protest in going on, led by the cork peelers. These people are losing their jobs because of the drop in worldwide cork sales. The country of Portugal claims part of its bad economy on the drop in this single field! Now the workers are campaigning to get the wine industry to start using the real stuff again, claiming that it is environmentally better because it's natural. But is it sustainable?

In Italy, Sardegna's the largest cork producer. I haven't seen any Sardinian cork protesters picketing during this crisis season, but they are probably suffering, too.

So is topping bottles with cork good or bad for the environment? I'm confused.

What's your opinion?

It's just such a great material: soft yet hard, light, solid yet airy, and heat-resistant, best of all.

Read and watch more about the cork scene at Time magazine and at Sughero Naturale.