Decorating tips for pet lovers

You’re going to find this out sooner or later, so I may as well fess up: I’ve become a bit of a cat lady. I’m actually allergic to cats and I’ve always been more of a dog person, but Sam loves cats and had his own cat before I came into the picture. So when we decided to move in together, I knew that his cat, Owen, was part of the deal.

But Owen, who was rescued as a kitten off the streets of downtown Philly by Sam’s stepdad, is quite antisocial. He loves Sam, but even after 6 years living with me he runs away when I walk into the room. Since we can’t get a dog right now, Sam convinced me that another cat would be a good addition to the family – one that actually lets me pet it, cuddle with it, etc. So that’s when we found 6-month-old Murphy at a local shelter.

Now I have two cats, and I realized looking through the camera roll on my phone the other day that I spend an inordinate amount of time photographing them.

But just because I am a crazy cat lady doesn’t mean I want my house to look it. So I thought I’d share some strategies for reconciling a love for furry friends with a decorating scheme that isn’t devoted entirely to them.

Strategy #1: Decorate around the shedding

Shedding is one of the inevitables when it comes to pets, and it can get especially bad during the summer time. My approach to coping with the shedding is to accept the reality and pick home décor that minimizes its appearance. I guess you could vacuum your floor and surfaces every day, but who wants to do that? Not my husband, that’s for sure.

For example, we used to have a charcoal-colored couch in our living room (the IKEA Karlstad in Sivic Gray). I loved the color, and the fabric was very durable. But 99% of the time, it was covered in orange and white hair from our tabby cat, and it drove me crazy. Every time I was in the living room, I would look over at that hair-covered couch and feel like a housekeeping and decorating failure. Sure I could try to change my psychological reaction to the couch, but wouldn’t it be easier to change the couch? So when we got a sectional for our new house and it came in that same charcoal gray color (second-hand from craigslist), I insisted that we shell out another $200 for a light gray cover.

Simply put, it’s been transformative. It does show stains more easily, but we can spot treat them when they do occur and it’s hands down better than the day-to-day battle against fur. The fur is still there, but we just don’t see it. And for the psychological relief that brings, it’s 100% worth it.

The trick is to figure out what colors work best for your pets and then just embrace them. It’s like that scene in 101 Dalmatians where all the people look like their pets, but instead it’s the fabrics in your home. I do admit, I’m still fighting the good fight to wear black clothing occasionally, but I’ll probably give that up soon enough.

Strategy #2: Color coordinate your pets

“But Sage,” you might ask, “what if I have multiple pets and they shed different colors?” Well, that was a big mistake. When we were in the market for Cat Number Two, I insisted that it have the same light coloring as Cat Number One for this very reason. The last thing I wanted was a black cat that would mess up Strategy #1, above. Maybe this sounds a little crazy, but we found an amazing cat at the animal shelter who is cute as a button and blends right in with the shedding that’s already happening.

Strategy #3: Stylish décor

It’s not that I want to completely hide the fact that pets live here. I love them, they are part of my family, and this is their home too (even though they’re total free-loaders). And their toys are important – they help them get their energy out so they don’t spend all their time knocking over lamps, and chew and scratch toys give them something to chew and scratch other than the furniture. (And scratch they will. We tried little nail caps on Murphy’s claws, which you can see in the header photo — the blue things on his paws — and he pulled them off in about a week. Owen is declawed, but it turns out that’s much crueler than we realized when we originally had it done many years ago. Vets now strongly recommend against declawing.)

Some pet accessories just aren’t attractive. Litter boxes fall into this category for me. I’m sorry, no matter how much you try to camouflage them, they are still little toilets that you have to manually empty.

I believe firmly in just hiding the litter box the best you can, and accepting the fact that you have one (or two, in our case).

But other elements of pet decor can range from “not that bad” to “totally awesome.” In the “not that bad” category, we have this cat tower in our living room:

Sure I would prefer not to have it in the corner of the living room, but Murphy needs it to get out his scratching and Owen needs it to help with his self esteem. (Yes, you read that right, long story.) And in the grand scheme of carpeted cat towers, it’s really not that bad – the colors are light, which fits with our decorating scheme, and it looks a little sleeker than the cat towers where it seems like someone just stapled a bunch of carpet scraps to pieces of plywood.

My mother-in-law has a great setup for her cat tower: she has a beautiful bay window in her living room, and the tower is nestled in it along with a lot of plants so that it’s really quite unobtrusive.

She has such an eclectic and effortless style, with amazing pieces like the large turquoise wardrobe (media cabinet) you see in the corner of the photos above.

Besides drawing inspiration from my MIL, I occasionally come across pet decor ideas on the interwebz that are so creative. Here are a few I love:

This amazing cat tree (which is quite expensive, but it’s DIYable, right?)

 And this incredible architectural playground:

Or maybe more realistic than building a home from scratch, a DIY add-on:

And because I’ve been cat-focused, here’s a dog-related  idea that I thought was clever (and doesn’t involve making a dog bed out of a recycled pallet — I don’t understand where everyone in DIY land is getting all those pallets):

The reality is, when you welcome a pet into your home, it’s never going to look quite the same again. But if you plan your decor strategically and even have some fun with it, you may just find that being a cat(dog) lady(fellow) and a design-minded homeowner are totally compatible.

Anyone else have useful tips to share?

(Sharing at I Heart Nap Time and Tip Junkie)