Buying Pet-Resistant Furniture for a HUGE Room Makeover!

Good morning, friends. I hope you are all doing well. You've already seen all of the rooms on the main floor of this 200-year-old house, and that includes the entrance hall, the parlor, the dining room, and the music room. Now, all of those rooms look pretty nice, I think. Today, I'm going to show you a room upstairs that does not look so nice. We're going to visit the library slash den, and I have to warn you, the room is a total disaster, and I'm going to blame that on my two cats and one dog. So, we're going to give that room a makeover this week, which will include trying to find some pet-proof, or at least pet-resistant, furniture for the room. So, let's head upstairs and get started on this job. Welcome to our library slash den. This is the room where my husband and I hang out at night. We watch TV, or we read books, and of course, the pets are welcome in this room. But unfortunately, the pets have done a real number on the upholstered furniture here, which is why we need to say goodbye to this ratty furniture and get some new things. And my first job is to start tidying this room. The library slash den mirrors the entrance hall below. Each room has a bay of three windows and an elaborately carved 19th century arch. To start this job, I'm picking up the myriad pet toys. Then I will dust the ceiling and walls, clean the many bookcases, and vacuum and mop the floor. As you can imagine, I'm quite embarrassed to show you this room in its current state. In the comments below, let me know if you've ever seen such a horror. I certainly hope not. I love this dust mop with its long, extendable handle. It can reach into corners and all nooks and crannies in the room. I'm using the white green cloth that one of you recommended to me to clean the huge flat screen television. The cloth works with only water and it does not leave streaks. I can link the cloth in the description box below if you are interested. Now I can remove every book from the bookcases and give them a good cleaning. Here again, I'm using the white green cloth. As you can probably tell, my husband and I are big readers. In the comments below, let me know what you are reading these days. The problem with having too many tables in a room is that they can become landing places for all kinds of things. They can become a catch-off. I'm actually going to take this old table out of this room. Now my spouse has promised to take the overflow of books to the local public library, and I hope he does that soon. We'll see if he keeps his word. While I've vacuumed as much as I can vacuum, let me go grab the mop. I think I've done enough work this morning. Now my next project is to go to a furniture store and try to find pet-proof or at least pet-resistant furniture. I've heard it does exist. Before we shop for furniture, I want to make something for today's tea time treat. Rhubarb is in season, so I'm going to make a rhubarb galette. I haven't made one of these galettes in a very long time. Instead of making an all-butter crust for the galette as I normally would do, today I'm going to use part butter and part vegetable shortening. Goldie, are you crying? Goldie is my cat. So I need 113 grams of fat in total. 53 grams here. Shortening is supposed to help make the crust extra flaky. Flour. Pinch of salt. Mix. In goes the fat. I'm just cutting the fat into the butter. Go is made. This can chill in the refrigerator while we go shopping for pet-proof or at least pet-resistant furniture. So microfiber is definitely your best bet with cats. That they'll get into. That's the scratching post. Oh yeah, I'd read something about velvet, too, that they can't. This is a little more textured than the microfiber, so if you've got a real scratcher they are going to get into it. This is very comfortable. Is it bouncy? Um, it's got a little firmness to it. You could try it. This is actually very, this is very comfortable as well. Yeah. At Raymore in Flanagan, one salesperson told me that leather is pet-resistant. Another salesperson said that microfiber upholstery is virtually cat claw proof because it is so tightly woven. I will show you what I selected very shortly. Dogs do very well with leather. Dogs, it's a whole other story. Yeah, well I have a dog, too. So I have a dog and two cats. I love this. He reminds me of a 19th century gentleman's club sofa. Well, good morning. I have a very good excuse for not finishing our rhubarb galette yesterday. I ended up buying two sofas from Raymore in Flanagan yesterday and they told me they could deliver them today, which meant when I got home I had to scurry to find someone to remove the old furniture from the room. I called 1-800-JUNK and they showed up at 830 this morning. While I gathered the ingredients for the galette, let me show you the great holloway. 1-800-GOT-JUNK was very professional. They showed up exactly when they said they would and removed the two sofas and wingback chair from the library. They also removed a huge and very worn sofa from our bedroom. So I have my clean rhubarb right here and I just need to trim it and then roughly chop it. So my oven is preheating to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 190 degrees Celsius. And I forgot to mention that the new furniture is supposed to arrive at 11.56 this morning. Yes, they had the time down to the minute and I am very excited. Rhubarb is mostly water, so you really need to thicken the juices. And I use ground tapioca for that. And if I didn't mention it before, I will link the recipe I'm following in the description box below. So tapioca plus I need sugar. And I will toss the rhubarb with the tapioca and sugar mixture. I'm going to set the rhubarb aside so it can exude its juices. Meantime, we can roll out the pastry dough. So I have my pastry cloth and some flour and my rolling pin. And here's my dough that chilled overnight. First, I need to flour my pastry cloth. Rub that in. My dough might be a little too cold to roll out, so I'm going to encourage it to cooperate. I need to roll this into a 12-inch diameter circle. I love using a pastry cloth because nothing sticks to it. And I can link this cloth and this French tapered rolling pin in the description below if you are interested. I better measure this dough. We are good to go. Putting this dough on a parchment-lined rimless baking sheet. This way it will be easy to slide the finished galette off of the baking sheet and onto a wooden board. So I just beat an egg and now I can fill the galette. Now I need to fold the edge over the rhubarb and make little pleats. Where is my pastry brush? Hello? Here's one. So I'm going to brush the beaten egg over the exposed part of the crust. Of course, the egg will help the crust to brown in the oven. And into the oven it goes. And while we wait on the galette, I'm going to go upstairs and give the library another good vacuuming now that all of that furniture is out. And here is our beautiful rhubarb galette. The crust has browned very nicely. Now to gild this lily, I'm going to glaze it with some red currant jelly. If you don't have red currant jelly, you could always use strawberry jelly, maybe even raspberry jelly. Oh yes. And the jelly is going to give the filling on this galette a lovely sheen. I'm going to let this galette cool for a bit and then I'm going to slide it onto a wooden board for easy cutting. Meantime, I'm going to get ready for the delivery of the new sofas. As you can see, we bought the leather sofas which were part of a special sale at Raymoor in Flanagan. Honestly, it was a bargain price. I love these sofas, but I hope the cats detest them. Actually, according to the internet, leather is considered cat claw resistant. But it is certainly not pet proof. I love the new furniture in that room. I'm so happy about it. Now we can slide this tart, or galette, into a board. And then do I want to use a knife to cut this or my pizza cutter? Hmm, I'll just use a knife. I'm going to enjoy this galette out on the front porch. The moment I have been waiting for. Oh my, this galette is an explosion of taste and texture. I mean, the crust is light and flaky, the filling is the perfect balance of tart and sweet, and that red currant jelly just, well, it makes the whole thing shimmer. Thank you so much for being here as we gave the library slash den a much-needed makeover and we baked this incredible rhubarb galette. And if you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up. And if you'd like to see more of what I have going on around here, I can post a couple of my other videos at the end of this one. And if you know someone who would enjoy this video, I would greatly appreciate your sharing it with them. I will have another video for you on Friday, and until then, please treat yourself very, very well. I can't wait to see you next time. Bye for now, friends. I'm going to finish my wonderful rhubarb galette, and then I'm going to go sit in the library.