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Barkitecture? What is that?
Do not confuse it with barchitecture which is the art of designing bars. Barkitecture is about keeping your pet in mind when redecorating. Traditionally many pet spaces are integrated with other rooms in the house, but barkitecture sees owners design areas just for their cats or dogs.
What you need to include in the design project if you have a pet?
If you don’t have a dog or cat, you have nothing to worry about. And if there is, try to make sure that the animals do not interfere with your life, but only make you happy.
Floor
If you have a dog, especially a large one, the floors should be very practical and durable. The best material would be porcelain stoneware. If you can’t imagine a floor other than wood, choose hardwoods, such as larch or teak. In some cases, oak, which has undergone special processing, can also become durable. There is a special technology for smoking wood – deep processing with smoke and oil.
Walls
Walls are best painted so that they cannot be peeled off and can be easily washed after the pet. And it’s better to do without drywall – there were cases when dogs gnawed at a drywall wall, apparently, they lacked calcium. Wall panels can save you from nose marks or paw marks (they are easy to clean), but sometimes cats sharpen their claws on them.
Bathroom
If the apartment has two bathrooms, as a rule, the owners adapt one of them for washing dog paws after a daily walk. A large dog, of course, is more convenient to wash in the shower. Small breed dogs (Jack Russells and small spaniels) can be washed in laundry sinks. If there is no second bathroom and the dog washes together with people, in no case should you buy an acrylic bathtub, only a cast-iron one.
A place to sleep and rest
If your dog is used to sleeping in your bed, don’t buy white linen. Silk is also not for you. Dogs like to wipe their faces on a duvet cover, and cats have a habit of lying down on a freshly laundered bed. If you have managed to educate your pet to its own place, consider yourself lucky. It remains only to find a corner in the new apartment in which there will be a cat basket or a bed for a dog.
There is no longer a need to put incomprehensible ugly complexes from pet stores in your cozy interior, because modern designers create amazingly aesthetic and practical items especially for animals.
Some designs seem rather intricate, but they are quite convenient – judging by how deftly dogs treat them. For dogs with a long body and short legs, designers have developed a system of ladders with platforms. For example, a “kennel” for a pug is an openwork “hill” of plywood parts assembled without the help of glue and nails. A curious dog easily climbs it, using the “slide” as a play area. Many pugs suffer from obesity and lack of exercise, so a “play zone” like this will not only keep your dog entertained, but also help them stay in shape.
For dogs with a long body and short legs – dachshunds, basset hounds – the designers have developed a system of long sloping ladders with platforms: it is much easier for a dog to climb onto such a platform than onto a chair – and having climbed onto it, it is almost on the same level with the owner. The space under the platform resembles a hole, which is especially attractive for dachshunds; a construction of this type can be made quite simple – or it can be turned into a whole labyrinth.
You can find modern designs for your cat or dog at Design Milk. Look at these fancy and stylish beds:
A bit less fancy but yet more affordable pet bed and sofas you can check out here at Petmate:
Here at Catch you can buy a cute pet drinking fountain to go well with your kitchen design:
And finally here are some examples of how to set up a space for your cat inside your regular objects in the house from Temple&Webster:
