Just look at Mom's house for examples. She's been blessed with most of the really chewy dogs. All her furniture looks terrible.
Actually, it's Mom's fence. My yard isn't fenced in, but my dogs visit next door a lot, so I have to maintain the fence. (I mow her yard too. Cheap daycare, believe me!!!)
I have three dogs, Mom has six. That's a lot of dogs. Ranging from a 185 pound black lab to a little, spritely Jack Russel terrier/coon hound mix.
Your choice, or the family? I grew up on a ranch in western South Dakota and we had lots of dogs, but they were all "outside dogs." They were very handy for pointing out when rattlesnakes, skunks and other undesireables were around. But they were always outside the house, whether it was 103 F or -30 F.
-- Mark
ipe will do it. purpleheart too though that may stand out more then you want. cocobolo (G) real ironwood too though it is spendy but very lice looking. there are a ton of tropicals that will hold up to the job. but remember the finish is only as strong as the wood. some plexiglass on the spot may be a better choice.
Don't know about the sun damage, but when we started looking at houses in this area, many of the places had marble window sills. In fact, so does the house we bought. It never even gets listed as a feature, but it sure makes the slider in the bathroom shower a lot more practical!
Charlie Self
"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal." Alexander Hamilton
"The Pistoleer" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:
I have the same problem and have use Jatoba, aka Brazilian cherry with great success. IPE, aka Ironwood, is another great choice if you can find it. Jatoba is probably more available, though.
For non-wet areas I usually use Duraseal, which is basically just a tung oil/long oil varnish mix that doesn't build on the surface. Just wipe it on and then hit it with some #1 steel wool after about 30 mins or so. Poly might be a good choice if you're concerned about rain from an open window, though dogs will scratch it a bit. My dogs slobber all over the Jatoba floors and it doesn't seem to cause any problems with just Duraseal, so that's probably what I'd use. Matt
My Scary Sharp setup is on a marble window sill removed from my mother's house during a remodel. Every house I ever lived in around Parkersburg had marble window sills - even the very inexpensive house dad built in 1960. I thought it was the norm. The first house I bought in Pittsburgh- built in the early to mid '60's had marble sills. My current house built in the '80's doesn't. Regional thing???
Dave Hall
Black locust should do it. When it's dry it will dull a chain saw in a few cuts.
Bill Ranck Blacksburg, Va.
Dave Hall asks:
I think so. As I say, it's not remarkable enough to even get listed by the RE agent. We looked at several, including a couple of once low end '60s houses, and this place, built in '15 but not palatial at all...great oak staircase, though, which is what sold my wife originally. I think some of it may come down from all the great Victorians in the area. I don't recall ever living anywhere where so many 1860 to 1910 homes were still in great shape.
And I've never seen a single marble sill elsewhere, though I've seen plenty of marble mantels and similar decorations.
Charlie Self
"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal." Alexander Hamilton
I wonder if that might be the case. I don't recall any homes in the Dallas area having marble sills and was suprised to find that feature in our home in Tucson (I'm not sure that is all that common here, I don't recall what other houses we looked at had). Thinking upon my remark regarding potential sun damage -- that's probably true in my area, in areas like yours I suspect they are more to prevent having to deal with moisture damage when a window is left open during a rainstorm.
Our downsizing house in Casa Grande has the "cultured marble" window sills and it was built in '94. It might be more of an "era" thing rather than an "area" thing. They sure would have made sense in the US Pacific Northwest as all the metal framed windows sweated like crazy (built up ice bergs) in a freeze. Ain't seen one of those in the last ten years in AZ.
-Doug
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.