The Residence Entrance: Excessive-end house design for canine

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Chad Falkenberg is principal designer on the ultra-talented design follow Falken Reynolds Interiors. For those who’re a human, getting Falken Reynolds to design your residential or business area is a really good factor, however it will get higher — they know easy methods to design for pets too.

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Postmedia sat down with Falkenberg to listen to his scorching recommendations on designing for pets at house.

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Get their wash and sleep stations proper

At Falken Reynolds, they’ve designed fairly a number of canine wash stations, says Falkenberg. The trick with these is making a spot the place the canine will get moist, however folks keep dry. They’ve achieved this by elevating the ground for the canine and utilizing a glass door that’s simple to achieve over and tailored for the canine’s measurement.

They’ve additionally designed a concrete canine wash station that catered for an enormous canine and a small canine — including a step so the smaller canine may climb in too. Accessibility is every thing.

Taking it to the following stage

In a single condominium design, they created a bathe that labored each for his or her consumer and someplace he may wash his 4 beagles:

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“The bench is giant sufficient for the canine to sit down on, and the hand bathe is shut at hand. The sliding glass door permits it to remain open and provides the consumer a bit extra elbow room when giving the canine a shower,” he says.

“We’ve additionally designed locations for canine beds and even built-in feeding stations which have a faucet proper above the canine’s water bowl,” he says.

Most important challenges when designing for pets?

“One of many greatest challenges is attempting to make issues practical, adaptable, and fade into the background, so the options don’t overtake an area,” he says.

To realize this, they make sure that the areas they design for pets are multi-functional. They just lately created a key drop station in a consumer’s kitchen extensive sufficient for the standard canine mattress to suit beneath it. This station options software drawers, a magnetic pin-up college calendar, and a counter for keys and mail. They selected to make the entire station out of Corian as a result of it’s a fabric that’s tremendous simple to scrub and helps hold the canine mattress in place, says Falkenberg.

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“However after they have friends, they’ll transfer the canine mattress to a different a part of the home, and the millwork appears to be like completely regular, built-in into the remainder of the design of the kitchen,” he says.

How is it completely different than designing for folks?

They select extra sturdy supplies when designing pet sleeping and consuming areas — understanding how a lot cleansing is required, he says:

“Corian, concrete, porcelain tile will all be simple to scrub, and so they’ll take numerous put on and tear and nonetheless look nice. We’re discovering purchasers see the advantages of designing for the pets from the start of the design course of, similar to we design for everybody else within the household,” he says.

get it proper

For those who’re constructing or renovating, you need to begin eager about the place and the way your pet will characteristic in your area as quickly as potential, says Falkenberg.

Ask your self: the place do we wish a hook for a leash? The place will the canine eat and sleep? What about bathing?

“It’s positively extra sophisticated to combine these issues into current millwork, plumbing and electrical, so incorporating them into the design from the start makes a lot sense,” he says.