How to Keep Your Home Beautiful When You Have Pets

We used a Sunbrella fabric for this sofa in a Kessler Park home. Sunbrella is easy to clean up and great for sun resistance.

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, 45.5% of Americans own dogs, while 32.1% of Americans own cats. As an interior designer, I need to know how to design homes for all of my Dallas clients, including those with small children or pets.

Designing a pet-friendly home presents several unique challenges. Even well-behaved pets can cause a lot of wear and tear on a home over time. Dog crates, dog beds, litter boxes and cat trees also stick out like a sore thumb. Thankfully, there are ways to protect your furnishings and disguise pet clutter without compromising on style.

Buy Heavy-Duty Fabrics

Indoor/outdoor rugs are the best choice for a home with pets. Rugs can also be treated to protect them against stains, making them easier to clean when accidents happen.

Any pet owner knows that keeping dogs and cats off furniture can be a losing battle. That’s why it’s important to choose durable fabrics, especially in the rooms your pet spends the most time in. Examples of high-performance fabrics include Sunbrella, Krypton, microsuede, microfiber, canvas, and indoor/outdoor fabrics. Another option is scratch-and-stain-resistant leather. If your pet has a favorite chair or a favorite spot on the couch, you can put a blanket there to keep their hair off the furniture itself.

Pet beds give your furry friend another place to rest—and shed hair—besides your furniture. Make sure to find one with a washable cover and a fabric color that complements the rest of the room.

If you own cats, stay away from anything with an open-weave that they can get their claws in. Avoid looped carpet, boucle, and tassel rugs, which some cats love to chew on. Performance velvet is a good choice that often deters scratching. Although pet hair and lint clings to velvet, it can be easily vacuumed off.

Rugs made of a tight wool weave can withstand scratching. Since cats can get their claws into loop pile rugs, I’d advise cat owners to choose cut pile rugs instead. Remember to secure your rugs to the floor with rug tape or rug pads.

Hide Pet Items in Plain Sight

Litter boxes and small dog crates can be discretely hidden inside modified cabinets. Search online for “litter box enclosures” or “dog crate furniture” for ideas. Large dog crates can be hidden under a tabletop with a tablecloth.

Nowadays, you can find cat trees or scratching posts that are designed to look like art pieces. Wall-mounted cat beds or cat shelves also give your cat a cozy perch to survey the room, without using up floorspace.

Owning multiple pets means you’ll have a lot of food and water dishes cluttering the kitchen floor. One popular solution is to build a kitchen island with a nook at floor-level for storing pet dishes—something to consider if you’re building a new home or remodeling your kitchen. A shallow toe-kick door can also be repurposed as a cat feeding station.

Pet toys can be stored in a bin or a woven basket with a lid to keep them out of sight. Consider putting your cat and dog treats in pretty jars instead of leaving them in their original packaging.

Vet Your housePlants

Does your cat love to nibble your houseplants? Offer them “cat grass,” which they can safely munch on, instead. You could also try decorating with faux plants instead of live ones. Before adding any live plants to your home, you should always make sure that they won’t be toxic for your pet. You can find a full list of plants that are dangerous for dogs or cats on the ASPCA website.

stay on top of grooming

When you are diligent about grooming your pet, it helps keep your home clean, too. Brushing or bathing your pet removes any hair that would otherwise end up on your floor or furniture. Animal hair leaves behind an oil that attracts dirt, so make sure to vacuum it off furniture at least twice a week.

Luxury vinyl tiles are a great flooring option for a home with pets because they’re easy to clean and durable. Vinyl tiles can even come with a faux wood finish. Avoid high-gloss tiles, which will highlight dirt and pawprints.

You can help protect your floors by regularly trimming your pet’s nails. Seen here is a photo from the foyer in a Dallas home we designed.

If you’re in the process of building a new home, plan ahead on where you want to bathe your pet. The mudroom is the perfect place for a washing station because you can take care of your pet’s muddy paws as soon as they return from the outdoors. A walk-in shower with an extra-long nozzle is another solution.

Even if you’re not allergic to your pet, it’s not a bad idea to use an air purifier. Air purifiers reduce allergens in the home and help cut down on pet odors too.

Keep Collectibles Out of Reach

There’s no need to leave your shelves bare if you have pets. Just take precautionary measures to make sure that no accidents (or intentional sabotage) happen. For starters, keep any accessories up and out of range of your dogs’ tails. Dealing with cats is trickier because they love to jump up high and knock things off of shelves. Try securing decorative objects with earthquake putty, or choose bottom-heavy pieces. For example, a vase can be filled with aquarium gravel to make it harder to move. Place your heaviest objects (like crystals) on the lowest shelves. Especially delicate or valuable items should always be kept in a glass display case.

Plastic table toppers help protect your wood coffee tables from scratches. When decorating your coffee table, gather your small objects in a tray. That way, even if the cat knocks them over, your items should be contained in the tray.

If you’re having trouble finding durable home goods that fit your home’s style, you could always contact an interior designer. Some of my favorite published projects have been for clients who owned dogs. Just because you live with pets doesn’t mean you have to settle for less. By choosing your fabrics wisely, and finding clever ways to disguise pet paraphernalia, you can keep your dream home looking beautiful for years to come. To schedule a consultation with Chambers Interiors, call our Dallas office at 214-651-7665 or send an email to margaret@chambersinteriors.com.

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The Art of Collecting: How to Use Collections to Personalize Your Home

We paired this Rose Medallion porcelain collection with Chinese porcelain birds, which add a three-dimensional element.

Collections are so important to interior design that I can't help but be surprised when I meet a client who doesn't collect anything. Collectibles give a home personality, pull the house together, and serve as conversation starters when guests come over.

That said, not everyone has discovered a collecting hobby that they're passionate about. Others might enjoy collecting but worry that their collections create too much clutter. In this article, I'll talk about how an interior designer would normally display a client’s collection, as well as list some ideas for collections for those who are interested in collecting but don't know where to start.

A collection of framed insects is an unexpected and whimsical addition to this African themed bedroom in Kessler Park.

Step 1: Starting Your Collection

Of course, you shouldn't collect just for the sake of collecting. Your collection should be something personal to you. Whether you are drawn to blue-and-white Delft, ceramics, black-and-white photography, tortoiseshell boxes, or snuff bottles, there are many different kinds of collectibles that are suited for different styles of homes. Car aficionados might enjoy collecting framed prints of classic automobiles. An avid reader, on the other hand, will likely want to own beautiful old books, interspersed with other decorative objects, like small lamps, bookends, and photographs.

If nothing comes to mind, consider collecting something that will complement your home’s existing decor and architecture. For example, I like to decorate modern homes with African art and textiles. For a Santa Fe style home, I would recommend Native American pottery and baskets. Another good starting point for a collection could be a family heirloom or a sculpture you picked up while traveling.

Step 2: Curate Your Collection

Before you find a place for your collection, make sure to curate it first. Prioritize the pieces that are in the best condition and fit your decorating scheme. You can always keep some pieces in storage and rotate them back out as the seasons change.

The items in your collection don't have to be a part of a matching set, but they do need to harmonize in terms of color, scale, and texture. When it comes to scale, having some variety is also important. If you're displaying prints on a wall, start with the largest in the middle, and arrange smaller prints around it. The frames should be cohesive as well.

We decorated the walls of this upstairs den with a collection of sepia animal prints.

Step 3: Artfully Arrange Your Pieces

Next, you’ll want to design the display area. It needs to serve as an attractive backdrop for the items while also drawing a visitor’s eye and keeping it there. The setting you choose to display your collection should be understated in order to keep the focus on the collection itself.

Open shelves, for example, can be painted the same color as the wall to help them fade into the background. You can create a more formal look by displaying items in a lighted curio cabinet. If you want to display a large collection of family photos, remember that a wall gallery is less cluttered looking than a series of propped up photos on a table. A hallway wall is a great place to display family photos.

Wallpapering the back of these bookshelves with a Schumacher star pattern helps to highlight the porcelains and books.

For small collections and vignettes, try using a decorative tray to bring your objects together. Trays are a good choice for collections of perfume bottles, small ceramics, seashells, or glassware.

Step 4: Balance Your Collection with the Rest of the Room

Don’t forget to surround your collection with some open space. A room with even the most beautiful collections will still look cluttered without visual buffers between each vignette. You can tie everything together by pulling from the colors in your collections and echoing them elsewhere in the room.

A collection of vintage architectural prints can look stunning when displayed together in matching 22 karat gold frames.

If you have some ideas for a collection but aren’t sure where to start shopping, consider working with an interior designer. As an interior designer, I have access to items that most clients wouldn’t have access to. People who already own an extensive collection can also benefit from working with a professional. A designer like myself will enjoy finding the best way to showcase your prized collection, and by having it on display, you can ensure that the space is truly a reflection of you and your personal taste. To schedule a consultation, email us at info@chambersinteriors.com or call our Dallas office at 214-651-7665.

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Add Serious Style to Your Bookshelves With These Five Steps

It’s important to leave some negative space on each shelf so that the items have “breathing room.”

Although shelves are rarely the focal point in interior design, it can’t be denied that cluttered, carelessly decorated shelves will distract from an otherwise immaculate space. If you’re redecorating your Dallas home and could use some help making your shelves look both clean and stylish, try following these five steps.

1: Edit Your Collections

We used a grasscloth wallpaper in the back of this bookcase for added depth, texture, and color.

To start with, remove all of the items on your shelves and go through them. Edit out anything that you either don’t love anymore or that clashes with the rest of your decorating scheme. This is also a great time to look at your bare shelves and decide if those could use an update, too. I like to add fabric or wallpaper to the backs of bookshelves to give them more depth and flair.

For a professionally designed look, keep in mind that interior designers usually decorate shelves with fewer items than the average homeowner. Cutting down on clutter gives each object more impact.

If you’re starting with a clean slate and could use some shopping tips, look for trays, small bronzes, boxes, antique tea caddies, vases, picture frames, and small art prints in addition to your books. Leaning a framed art print or photo against the back draws the viewer’s eye deeper into the shelf.

Organic accessories, such as petrified wood, geodes, coral, shells, and rattan baskets help give your shelves a variety of textures. Small potted plants (whether faux or live) add some refreshing greenery to your shelves too.

2: Pick Your Main Colors

Bookshelves should have a unified color scheme whenever possible. I recommend picking two complementary colors, adding in one type of metal, and using any number of neutral colors in-between.

3: Place Your Largest Items First

After you’ve narrowed down your selections, place your largest items on the shelves first. These can include stacks of coffee table books, baskets, vases, sculptures and trays. Some of these pieces may be large enough that you can put them on a shelf standalone.

The shelves in this Preston Hollow library are stained black, creating a dramatic backdrop for the clients’ books and objet d’art.

4: Organize Your Books

Next, gather together all the books you’re using. If you have lots of books, you can group them by color.

Experiment with arranging books vertically, leaning them, or stacking them horizontally. A horizontal stack should have at least three books. If any of your books have unattractive spines or do not match your color scheme, turn them around so that the pages are facing out instead.

The blue-and-white china and the books on these shelves are all color-coordinated with the rest of the room.

Some formulas for combining books and accessories include:

·        Putting books, a bookend, and a decorative bowl or basket together on a shelf

·        Setting a ball-shaped accessory against leaning books and adding a vase

·        Holding a set of books upright with a horizontal book stack that has a decorative object on top

5: Add the Finishing Touches

Once you’ve found a place for your large and medium items, use your small items to fill in any awkward gaps. That said, don’t fill out every shelf completely. A little negative space helps give your collections some “breathing room.”

As you arrange your shelves, make sure to vary the heights, pairing tall and short items together. Don’t be afraid to show your personality: shelves are the perfect place for travel mementos, family photos, and collectibles.

Before you finish decorating, take a step back to see how all the shelves in a room work together. It’s important to have some repeating colors or objects evenly distributed throughout the shelves, but it can be tricky to achieve the right balance. For example, if you have two gold objects on two adjoining shelves, you may want to move one of them to a further away shelf to balance things out.

A mixture of potted plants, porcelain jars, books, and picture frames fill these shelves we designed for a Plano home.

One way to balance a tall shelving unit is to fill the four corner shelves with similar objects. These corners create a visual “frame” that bring everything together in the center shelves. To style a long shelf, create distinct vignettes that gently touch each other around the edges.

None of these design rules are set in stone, so don’t be afraid to experiment until your shelves feel right to you. And most of all, don’t forget to have some fun too. Shelves are a great opportunity to express a story about yourself. The end result shouldn’t look too staged, but rather, tell the world about who you are.

Having trouble editing down your collections? Getting a professional second opinion from an interior designer is invaluable. To contact us, send an email to info@chambersinteriors.com or call our Dallas office at 214-651-7665.

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