Back when I adopted Miss M, I was a lone bachelorette. But once I had her we lived the bachelorette lifestyle together. At that time I had lived a type of nomadic lifestyle, moving from apartment to apartment, and I didn't own any real furniture. Though with my new pup I felt ready to settle down, stay in my apartment for awhile, and get some real furniture. Since I was starting from scratch, I was able to choose things with our new lifestyle in mind. And those same things made our way into the home we now share with E and Mr. B. Here are some things that have worked for us to keep our home dog-friendly:
Round Coffee Table:
Since Miss M had a habit of running around my living room, I wanted a round coffee table so she wouldn't hurt herself on the pointed edges. Especially if we have some pooches playing smack down--which is never Miss M and Mr B...perhaps a foster dog or guest--we know the pooches won't take a corner to the eye.
Benches & Ottomans:
I didn't have a lot of money to spend, so instead of buying separate chairs and side tables I just bought a couple of ottomans and benches and moved them around.
We used these ottomans (normally in our livingroom) as impromptu dining chairs:
And this bench as an impromptu side table or moved to become a TV tray.
The best part of having movable furniture with dogs is that it makes vacuuming that much easier. Plus, you can also use ottomans to work on
this type of training.
Dog-Resistant Rugs:
I learned that our best bet was choosing rugs that are short pile in darker colors. Through we also like the bamboo rug we use in the kitchen because it's really easy to wipe down. And FLOR tiles that we use under our table and
in Mr. B's tepee. because if any part of the rug gets ruined, you can just take that part out and buy a new tile. We wrote more about our rugs,
here.
How have your pups influenced your furniture decisions?
Also:
We never realized they would
have this type of influence.
Creating a 'dog bedroom' in an open space
How we made our dog crate actually look nice
7 comments:
Ha, I don't know about influcing our furniture buying decions, but they've defintely influenced us NOT to buy a new giant chew toy, I mean couch! At least as long as our house is home to transient dogs. :-)
My parents were thinking about gifting me their old car, which has leather seats. My sister convinced all of us that leather seats and dog claws would not be a good match.
Great ideas. We like the Ikea pillow idea too
Benny & Lily
I purchased most of our current furniture before we adopted Monkey and Petey. We have the same (!) white sofa (C&B Petri) as you guys and we seem to make it work, though it gets a thorough cleaning every few months with Scotchguard upholstery cleaner. Rugs are my biggest challenge. We had multiple (5+) West Elm jute rugs before, and now only 2 remain. They just don't handle clean up very well, though Host dry carpet cleaner is your best bet and has saved us multiple times. We have FLOR tiles in the most dog-centric areas, but I still prefer the look of throw rugs over carpet squares. So I am going to test out indoor/outdoor rugs and see if they can be convincing indoor rugs (that you can hose off to clean!).
We didn't really think through our decisions when we bought our furniture about 10 years ago. Now, it's time to start replacing pieces that have worn out and I'm going to take your advice on a few things I'm looking to get. Great post!
Leather furniture was the dog decision because it is so much easier to clean than fabric. The dog hair seemed to weave their way into the fabric and awful at vacuuming away while leather was just spray on cleaner and wipe off.
What breed is your dog?
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