SeniorWomenWeb's Design Reviews

Animal House Style; Designing a Home to Share with Your Pets
By Julia Szabo 2001
Bulfinch Press

We inherited a cat with the house we moved into less than a year ago. Karl was too old a feline to expect that he could adapt to a new home in far off Hawaii. My husband spoils him with affection and he offers us up gifts of garden pests he's stunned.

Although we had owned two cats and two dogs at one time, sadly old age and disease overtook them. No new pets had appeared in the interval as, with children grown and living elsewhere, the house during our absence at work would have been a lonely place.

We've read our share of other decorating books which deal with every kind of style imaginable excluding 'anarchist' or 'wasted.' I didn't quite know what to expect from this book and encountered one full of helpful and informative facts about what to do and what not to do to your home while caring for pets. As Martha Armstrong, a vice-president of the US Human Society states in the introduction to the book,

Animal House Style is really about another kind of interior: the interior of the heart. The people and the animals in this book share more than living space. Their relationships provide comfort that goes beyond the touch of lush fabrics and the beauty of fine furnishings. Theirs are deep, loving bonds that last for life."