How to create a pet friendly home

1. Add a mudroom

Dog owners, your daily walks are not always the cleanest, right? Mud and dogs go hand in hand (or paw in paw) so when bringing them into the house, it is helpful to have a space that you don’t mind getting muddy. A mudroom, with tiled flooring, is just the thing that makes this transition a stress free experience. Counters, hooks, drawers and shelves also provide the perfect place to store your doggy paraphernalia, which will make the toing and froing of a walk much easier for everyone involved.

Not that the mud room is just for your dog. It’s a space for everyone in the family to offload before coming inside. If you have a couple of curious kids who love jumping in deep puddles, you’ll get a great deal of use out of a mudroom too. They also often double as utility rooms; a place to keep bulky washing machines and tumble driers. Keeping these in the mudroom will not only save space in your primary living areas, but they will prevent noise disruption from the noisy spin cycles.

2. Add a dog washing station

For the real dirty dogs, you might even consider a washing station. These come in a few different styles, and are often built into mud or utility rooms. They’re perfect for long haired dogs that collect lots of dirt, or pampered pooches who like to be kept spotless. If you are hyper-aware of mess or are a bit of a perfectionist around the home, washing stations also make sure the dog wandering around your house is not bringing in any mud or bad smells.

3. Being ‘connected’

That’s right, a connected home aids our wellbeing too. When we surveyed 4000 UK households for our Happy Homes Report, we found six key qualities contributing towards the happiest spaces. One of these qualities was ‘connected’; the ability to connect in and around our homes. Open plan living is a great way of creating this connection in the home, but we also found our homes need to connect with the outdoors.

Connecting with the outdoors is something both we and our pets benefit from. Animals like cats and dogs don’t just enjoy their time outside, but when inside they’ll look out of the window to see what is going on. We too benefit from a view of our outdoor spaces, especially if those views are of a beautiful, thriving garden. So how can you design your home with this in mind?

Increasing views can be done a number of ways. Making sure your garden looks healthy is key, but you can also implement bigger windows, more windows or even structural glass. Floor to ceiling doors are a double whammy, in that they give you a great view and also open up your home directly to the outdoors. This allows pets to roam freely, which will make them much happier. The increased connection to the outdoors will also contribute to a generally happier home for everyone, so it’s a win win!

Learn more about making your home ‘connected’.

4. Add cat shelves

The cat owners among you will know they are very vertical animals. Their tendency to climb is something you should try your best to accommodate, because if ignored, they will likely scale your other furniture, scratching paint with their claws and knocking off valuables as they go.

A great way of combating their clambering tendencies is designing a play space which caters to their climbing. Cat shelves are wall-mounted platforms that let your feline friends ascend, perch and sleep higher in the room, where most of them are comfortable. Cat trees are similar constructions, though rarely fixed in position, they offer a place for cats to climb, scratch, hide and sleep.

These are a design choice you can implement into your home as much or as little as you’d like. Adding the odd few to a wall will be appreciated by your cats, but know the bigger and more creative you go, the happier they will be!

5. Beds

Everyone deserves a spot they can call their own, somewhere they can feel safe and retire to after a long day of chasing tails, chewing slippers, scaling furniture, and other acts of mischief. For pets, this safespace is in the form of a bed. Many owners go simple with these, but using a little creativity in design can give your pets a truly unique and personal space.

Creative pet bed design can come in many forms. The ultimate space-savers embed them into existing structures or utilise ‘dead space’, space that is not currently being used. Under a draw, within an existing wall, and even under the stairs are all great spots to work in a pet bed. These will also stop the beds from standing out, instead they will blend seamlessly into your home’s existing style.

6. Open plan

For years, homeowners converting, altering and renovating their properties have turned to open plan living, creating large and social living spaces that combine multiple rooms into one. But we humans are not the only ones who appreciate this style. Our pets love open plan too.

Open plan living means our pets have the freedom to go where they want, instead of being refined to a particular room, scratching on the door to get in or out. It also means our pets are free to approach us. Although the desire for attention differs from species to species and individual to individual, all pets, even fish, are social to some degree. Creating an open plan environment and increasing how connected a space is will improve their wellbeing, as well as yours.