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Creating a Pet Room: Transform Your Spare Room into a Pet Room

There are a lot of great reasons to turn the spare room of your home over to your pets. If your home is succumbing to cat claws or doggie paw prints, giving your pets a room of their own can alleviate clean up and destruction. If you frequently have guests in your home, a pet room can also help with shedding and dander, keeping the majority of it in a confined room. This is helpful to folks with allergies and also gives your pets a safe place to stay while the party is happening. However, a pet room doesn’t have to be an afterthought. The possibilities for remodeling or building a room just for pets are endless.

Designing For Your pet

If you are fortunate enough to be building a new home, you can put a pet room into your design. Even if you’re remodeling though, there are many options for design. Consider putting in a tile or concrete floor with a drain in the center for easy cleaning. (Just make sure there is a slope in the direction of the drain so that water doesn’t pool.) You can even take this design a step further with a shower feature for bathing dogs. You’ll want to put tile all the way up to the ceiling, but think about the possibilities for easy cleaning!

If you have small dogs or cats, maybe you want to make the room a little cozier. Consider using interlocking rubber tiles on the floor so that it’s easy on all four feet. Counters at the perfect height for brushing and grooming make a great addition. Also storage shelves and cabinets for food, toys and other pet related items can keep everything your pet needs in a central location.

If one of the walls of your pet room faces the outside, a pet door the leads to the yard can also be a great addition. Many pet rooms are now designed with a dog run attached. If you have cats, you could even create an enclosed area so that indoor cats can spend a bit of time outside, but do so safely.

Furnishing With Pets in Mind

There are many great ways to furnish a pet room depending on what kind of pets will be using the room. Cats would enjoy scratching posts, cat trees, ledges and a variety of opportunities for climbing and napping. A room with windows of course, is always preferred for outside viewing enjoyment. So some furniture strategically placed for the view would be enjoyed by almost any kitty. Some pet owners even put an enclosed aquarium in the pet room or a television so that their favorite felines have something interesting to watch all day long.

Dogs like furniture too! There is a tremendous variety of dog beds available for the pet room. Depending on how fancy of a bed you want, you can pay up to $1,500 for fashionable furnishings. Be sure that whatever you choose is washable. Rugs are a great added feature as well. Sisal rugs, wool rugs and nylon rugs are great choices. Furnishing a pet room is all about fashion, comfort and ease of cleaning.

Decorating For Your Pet

Be sure to use your imagination when decorating your pet room. Even if you are simply putting in vinyl tile and some wallpaper to create a pet space, have fun decorating! The pet room can be as fanciful as you wish even if the rest of your home is very tasteful. Maybe you can use a 101 Dalmatians theme, decorating in all black and white. A jungle theme would also be fun. There’s no reason for the pet room to be boring. In fact, you’ll probably be spending quite a bit of time in there yourself!