The Dog's Room

I have a small room off the main house, like a place that was conceived of as a screen porch, but was converted to a year-round room sometime in the distant past. It has huge windows on three sides, and even a glass door and a leftover window on the interior wall to the main house. It has knotty pine paneling, a symptom of the times in which it was built. It also has fake beams in the ceiling, and an incredibly ugly and in-your-face linoleum now hidden beneath carpet tiles. It has its own electric baseboard heating system, and I installed a through-the-wall air conditioner. 

It used to be the dog's room, since my Abbey adopted it as her own maybe twenty years ago, because she had been an outside dog and she wanted the visibility. When I got Rocky, he needed to be confined initially because he was undergoing heartworm treatments, and I used this room, which had room for his big crate. Later, he had to be confined in order to manage his voracious destruction. The TV has always been in there. Bixby is not generally left in there, so perhaps it’s becoming the TV room. Or, maybe it’s becoming the green room, as I concentrate plants in there.

The last time I substantially upgraded the room was in 2013, between Abbey and Rocky. Between dogs is often a good time for a really deep cleaning. I took all the books off the shelves and dusted and vacuumed all the dog hair, and shampooed the carpet. I acquired my first flat screen tv, and worked the wiring to set up a sound bar.

Now, I’m contemplating a major upgrade. It could use a more efficient and quieter heating and cooling system, so I want a mini-split to hang on the wall. But that requires rerouting an electric line from the opposite wall. Once that is in place, the through the wall air conditioner should be removed, so the outer and inner walls will need to be patched. Patching the knotty pine wall might be a problem, so why not just drywall the whole thing? If I’m doing that, should the fake ceiling beams come out as well?

And so the dominoes begin to fall.

I typically think about these things for a long time before acting. I have researched mini-splits (but don’t understand the name or it’s origin). It’s time to discuss with a contractor.