Modern furniture
Designers' stylish, glamorous products help make pets feel at home
Pet furniture has come a long way from teal carpeted cat towers and lumpy plaid dog beds.
For discerning pet owners who treat their cats and dogs like family — in some cases better than family — designers are creating stylish, even glamorous, furniture.
Witness the new $5,000 Crystal Clear Lotus Cat Tower by the Refined Feline, with three platforms for lounging and a hideaway cubby at the bottom lined in white faux fur. (You can see one at the trendy Los Angeles cat cafe Crumbs & Whiskers.)
And now you and Buddy can catnap or watch DOGTV on matching tufted Chesterfield-style Wayfair Archie & Oscar sofas; his is a $399 miniaturized version of yours in faux-leather scaled with similar nailhead trim and turned legs.
None of these products, however, guarantee that they will keep their paws off your favorite club chair.
Over the past five years, pet furniture has been growing in sophistication and durability, said Phil Cooper, a pet industry expert with more than 50 years in the business. This trend has blossomed with the development of regional pet stores and local pet boutiques, which tend to offer more personalized service than big-box stores, plus the rise of fancy pet product websites, he said.
An army of pet experts, behaviorists and designers is looking for ways to make dogs and cats sleep and play more comfortably, stylishly and safely.
“The choices available to pet owners today did not exist even a few years ago,” said Steve King,
chief executive of the American Pet Products Association.
Jackson Cunningham, founder of Tuft +Paw, just got back from Italy, where he was sourcing partners to develop designer cat furniture. His 3- yearold company has appealed to fussy feline owners with sleek gray scratching towers and retro birch litter box furniture.
“Making pet furniture is very interesting because you have a customer who is human and the user who is a pet. You have to make sure it works for the user, but the decisionmaker is human ,” Cunningham said. “We want to make pieces that owners take joy in seeing their cats use.”
So what' s sparking joy these days for whippets and Maine coons? Here are some trends you' ll see on Ins tag ram and pet blogs.
Space-saving furniture
Space is a problem for pet owners in urban areas.
Ikea's Scandinavianstyle clean lines and affordable prices are popular with a younger crowd that' s often living in smaller apartments. So in 2017, with the introduction of its Lurvig line of furnishings for pets, it made sure the pieces fit in with what was already in their collection. For example, the Lurvig cat house ($10.99) is a cozy cube fitted with a cushion (with a removable washable cover) inside that slides perfectly into Ikea's Kallax shelf storage unit.
No room for a separate dog bed for your schnauzer?
Try the Abigail Murphy Classic Dog Bed by New Age Pet. The bed( available in espresso and antique white) folds up when not in use and has a memoryfoam mattress with a machine- washable cover.
Josh Feinkind, president of Refined Kind Pet Products, whose brands include Refined Fe line, is constantly looking for ways to accommodate pets in small spaces.
“We New Yorkers don't have floor space, but we have wall space. Cats want to climb and perch, so we make lots of interesting shelves,” he said.
Mini human furniture
Last year, Wayfair launched the Archie &Oscar line of pet furnishings with nearly 1,000 pieces, including a gray rattan domed cat lounge rand a white Chippendale-style dog gate made of chewresistant wood.
“We conceptualized a lot of the product to look like human furniture ,” Way fair spokeswoman Julie Cassetina said. “Our pets have tested our sofas and armchairs, and we know they enjoy them, so we scaled them down to size.”
Similarly, the humans that run the Casper mattress brand were intrigued that so many of their customers posted social media photos not of themselves but their dogs luxuriating on their pressure- relieving memory-foam mattresses.
“We decided to launch a pet-friendly version of our people mattress, with little tweaks that are dog-specific ,” said Jeff Chapin, Casper's co-founder and chief of product. They interviewed dog owners, pet retailers and dog psychologists to come up with the best design details. Two years ago, they introduced a specially contoured dog bed available in three sizes and colors ($125$225) with a washable outer cover made to shed fur and withstand bites and scratches.
Double-duty furniture
Owners like furniture that serves both them and the pet, King said. At New Age Pet, t he Sundown Nightstand Pet Bed, available in espresso, antique white and Nantucket gray, lets your dog sleep beside you on his own little cushion, and you can keep your bedside lamp on the same piece of furniture. Joss & Main's 60-inch Henrietta Cat Tree provides a jumping area and hideaway for your cat and a faux tree for your living room.
Some companies are creating discreet accent furniture that hi des the lowly litter box. The Rifiuti by Tuft + Paw ($599) is made of birch plywood with horizontal stripes and tapered legs; the company website says it references “mid-century modern furniture and classic retro radio designs.”
Where to put all your pet' s a cc es sori es? Joss& Ma in' s Lula Entry way Dog Bed ($394.99) is a stylish multitasking piece of wood veneer furniture with a dog bed and hooks to hang leashes plus your dog's raincoat and yours. The pullout storage drawer can be filled with dog toys or your gloves and scarves.