How to: Dog Slobber Splash Blocker.

A what now?  A dog slobber splash blocker.

Ah, teaser!  Keep reading!

Ok, I'm freaking out less about the whole first floor bathroom ordeal now.

I mean, I'm still a little freaked as wow, I've created a towering workload for myself.  How the heck is little ol' me gonna pull off this massive bathroom miracle?

Yep.  Here we are.  (But isn't the brick awesome?!?!)

Or maybe I should be really freaking out now, I dunno.

At one point or two or ok several I got worried, like omg Mike is totally going to file for divorce and/or toss me in a loony bin and/or kill me.

Although.

If he hasn't after ten and a half years of togetherness, and he has not, I should be in the clear.  Love is...succumbing to your wife's house destroying tendencies?  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Next step is tub removal in order to keep going, a step I suspect I might be unable to accomplish solo.  Cough, cough, ahem...Mike....

And I don't have enough of the Antares copper tile to use on both walls.  Unless I find some filler to mix in as the Antares is out of stock well, everywhere.  Of course.  Hm.  Regardless, 20x20's on a three foot wide span will require a keen, thoughtful layout.  Filler might help, hm....

Buuuuuut in the mean time, yeah, heh, back to averting, diverting, other projects!

So say you've got this ginormous beast of a dog with a proportionally large drinking apparatus.  And say said hound drinks oodles of water to tank up that oversized body of his.  And then say when he does drink water, he slobbers and splashes and sprays it all over the damn place.

Ya know, like all in slow motion, water spewing everywhere (click it, seriously) hitting the walls, the floor, his face, anything within a ten foot radius.

And then say you just repainted the kitchen wall.  Only to discover that when water gets on it, it's extra streaky.  Boo.

I should have put up some form of wall protection a long time ago but never did.  The whole area, amazingly, is not ruined but now that the wall is repainted a leaning-more-permanent shade, it was time.  Time indeed.

We begin tonight, folks, with a water bowl stand.  Humble and messy and drenched.

Bowl.

Rummaging in the basement I came across pieces of quarter inch thick particle board that were once shelves to a crummy metal shelving unit that did not survive a move.  But.  Me.  I am a materials hoarder.  I kept the shelves.  Of course.  As I do.  "I'm sure I can use these for something later, yeah, totally...."

Upon dragging one upstairs and propping it between the bowl and the wall, with furrowed brow, I harrumph'ed.  UNattractive.  Walked away.

Lame and unattractive.

Circling it the next day like a shark, or I guess technically maybe half-circling at best, I was chin-scratching for ideas.

How can I make this.....ah ha!  A city skyline!  That's way way better!

After some quick measurements of key items on the wall, I scurried to the basement and began drawing it up.

Nothing complicated really.  Just random shapes, trying to keep the center area practical yet stylish.

Little hard to see the pencil lines there, apologies.

Once it was drawn up, it was time to cut.  Using the little 3" saw I cut a handful of the straight lines and trimmed off larger excess.

Cuttin' them there straight lines.

For finer work, I turned to my jigsaw, yes the one I'm not fond of but it does still cut things.  Of course it's challenging to keep straight lines with it but, perfectionism be damned.

Cuttin' them there more finer details and corners.

Mmk!  The whole thing is cut and ready for paint!

Mmk!  Paint 'er up time!

What can I use that's fast drying, water repellent...ah, a can of white spray paint.  I may later on down the line pick up some more Plasti Dip* for this as well as a refresher can for the water bowl stand.

Which has worked stunningly well by the way, that Plasti Dip stuff.  Considering how drenched the stand gets.  Cha-ching!

Anywhoo....

Right, so spray painting indoors in winter?  Bad idea.  Of course.  Don't do it.  I set up shop in the basement bathroom with the exhaust running and a fan.  Stinky and not advised.  Don't.

If I had little baby cans of spray paint, mini graffiti would have been fab!

A few dustings and it was time to figure out wall mounting.

Which turned out to be random leftover screws I had, some washers for a dressed up "industrial" effect, and some plain ol' wall anchors.

Hey, a screw and a washer!

I drilled through the particle board into the wall, drilled out the wall holes larger, banged in the anchors (carefully mind you as now knowing we have paper thin drywall....), and zip zip!  We have slobber splash blocker!

Ha!  How funny! And ha, the outlet is not squared! Dammit!  That won't make me insane at all.....

Super cute, yeah?!  I'm such a dork sometimes, eh?

hahaha, totally cracking myself up!

And holy bananas, it worked!  Totally worked!  Check it out!  Ha!  So silly!

Peer in there real close, you'll see the droplets on the thingie and not the wall!  Yay!

Now Finny-boy can feel like he's on a big city adventure while tanking up!

Mike gave me a guffaw, a grin, and said it was cute.  Eeeeee, thumbs up!

*The Plasti Dip is an Amazon affiliate link.  Mwah, thanks!  Please see the "boring stuff" tab for more info.