For those who don't know, Ryan and I have one dog and one cat. The dog is my precious not-so-little princess. The cat came with Ryan...they were a packaged deal lol. I affectionately call him "little monster" (I actually call him another name but it wasn't friendly enough to type in my blog lol). Anyways, this cat is the most determined, stubborn cat ever. When he's decided he's going to do something, he is absolutely impossible to stop. And as he's gotten older he no longer likes his litter box. We tried changing litters, adding extra boxes, etc. But for quite a while he just decided he was going to pee on the carpet (particularly in one area). Eventually we couldn't take the smell (doesn't matter how much you try to clean it, after a while the smell is permanent). So we just cut out the carpet, lol.
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So now what? Eventually we will replace all the carpet but there's really no point in doing that while he's still around and possibly still peeing on the carpet. We started looking at the prices for rugs or carpet remnants. They were still pretty expensive and none of them really matched that well. We have talked several times about replacing the carpet with wood flooring but it is hard to visualize what color or kind would look good. When we were at Home Depot we saw that they had some laminate click-lock flooring on clearance for less than $1 per square foot. That's way cheaper than a rug! We bought some to try it out. First, we got some Killz primer to seal the plywood in case any smell had permeated into the wood and to prevent the wood from getting soaked if he peed there again.
Once the primer was dry we just laid down the flooring in that area. We didn't do any trim work or even attach the carpet to the wood. Once all the planks were put together and pressed against the wall and tile, it sat slightly under the edges of the carpet. It really doesn't slide around or anything. It does look a little out of place but I don't think anyone would realize we just cut the carpet and put this in for the time being, lol.
Since then, we continued to try to figure out a solution with KC. We finally found something that seems to work - puppy pads! Those big absorbent pads that are supposed to help potty train puppies are pretty cheap and for whatever reason, KC seems to like them. We also no longer leave him free to roam the house when we're gone. If we can't be there he has to stay closed in the master bathroom (his food, water and puppy pads are in there). It is amazing how much better it smells in the living room now that he's not peeing in there. Thank goodness! Oh the joys of a senile cat.
