Animal House Style: Designing a Home to Share with Your Pets

by Júlia Szabó, Mary Tyler Moore (Contributor)

A stylish guide to interior design offers practical and innovative solutions for pet owners on how to create a home decor for maximum human and animal comfort and offers helpful tips on how to keep one's pet-friendly interiors looking their best. 40,000 first printing.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Animals

Hardcover

Published September 20, 2001

Reviews

[Robin · Rating 1 out of 5]

As the owner of two dogs I was hoping for practical tips on designing a stylish modern home that is also pet-friendly. Unfortunately, this book did not provide me with useful advice. Actual tip: "use sturdy slipcovers on sofas, not silk." No big news there! This book featured around 50 designer's homes (Caroline Herrera, Kate Spade, Todd Oldham) all beautifully photographed, but the suggested style is a bit beyond a "normal" budget (Gucci dog beds! Seriously!) Beautiful photos but not really practical.

[Yenta Knows · Rating 2 out of 5]

A beautiful book to page through, with professional-quality photos of dogs, cats, birds, and furniture. Didn't help me that much with designing a new condo to be pet friendly: I skimmed to find the useful tips, which were partly hidden by the author's cloying verbosity. More oriented to dogs than to cats: I don't have to worry much about dirt, but I sure do have to worry about clawed upholstery.

The author's budget for interior design and household maintenance appears to be much larger than mine.

[Lady Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of Szabo's advice is so obvious it's infantile, such as suggesting that bare floors survive better in a home with pets than wall to wall carpeting. Other advice, such as recommending specific upholstery fabrics that are pet-friendly, is really useful. Littered with mentions of name brand products, vendors and designers.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is basically common sense things, think about how you want to live with your animals and work around it. Think about the dog when choosing rugs, fabrics, etc. Think about where you want them to sleep, what might happen when they are old and less mobile etc. Pretty designs though! Worth a look.