The Dog Room

It’s no secret that I love dogs. Especially my dogs. And it’s no secret that my entire world revolves around them. We moved into our current house solely because our dog at the time (Bella) kept jumping over the fence at our old house, and we needed a house with a 6 foot fence.

When “quarantine” happened, Will and I did what every other stir-crazy couple did: we looked at new houses. Specifically, we looked at new houses with dog rooms (a tiled room off the kitchen that our dogs could eat and sleep in, and go to when they were muddy). As much as I love our fur babies, I also came to realize how much of a burden they were becoming to my clean house (case in point: our destroyed Potterybarn couch).

We found a few good contenders, and then looked at our bank account – no new house for us! That’s when we started looking at what we could do to upgrade our current space.

Our house already had a mudroom that two of our dogs (Alice and Ca$h) slept in at night. We figured if we pulled out the bench we would be able to fit Bella’s crate and allow for all 3 dogs to sleep in there. Of course, I didn’t stop with just that….

Unfortunately we lost Bella halfway through the construction. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss her. She would have loved her new “place”! Here is a before picture (with Bella and Alice, patiently waiting for their breakfast).

Honestly, it was a great mud room, and would have been perfect if we could have actually used it for a mud room. But, I think homes need to be just as functional as they are aesthetic – so we decided to change it.

After pulling out the mudroom bench, we had the walls painted and then this dog wallpaper put up. Of course, we couldn’t have a dog room without a dog “closet” to hang up all their outfits! I found this clothes rod and wooden hangers from Amazon. Down the hallway we put a Ruggable runner – a staple in our home, and a necessity if you have lots of dogs (or kids, for that matter).

The less glorious part of the room includes the new eco flex crate – a bit more upscale than your typical wire crate. We also upgraded the dog water bowl to the Neater Feeder – if you have messy dogs and want to preserve your paint/wallpaper, this is a necessity (I am speaking from experience here…) And last, we grabbed a few baskets to throw all their random things in and keep the area neat.

And there you have it – the ultimate dog room. Now we have a space to store all of our dog items as well as keep the dogs when they are muddy or sleeping at night. It’s the perfect combination of fun and function!