Animal House Style: Designing a Home to Share with Your Pets [Hardcover]

Julia Szabo (Author), Mary Tyler Moore (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 20, 2001

Is your apartment decor decided by a yellow Lab? Does kitty call the shots in interior design? Finally, stylish solutions for living with pets. "Animal House Style" is the first decorating book to offer practical advice from pet owners on how to select high-performance furnishings for maximum human, canine, feline, and other animal comfort. It also features how to keep your pet-friendly interiors looking their best and other vital information rarely found in design magazines or books. This chic, trend-conscious book is sure to inspire pet lovers across the country to make every animal house a beautiful house.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Julia Szabo writes the 'Pets' column for the Sunday New York Post and the 'Truth in Decorating' column for Elle Dcor.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Bulfinch; 1st edition (September 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821227556
• ISBN-13: 978-0821227558
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 9.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,688,789 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's About Time, April 13, 2002

By 

Kay "keepitsimple" (Rochester, New York United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Animal House Style: Designing a Home to Share with Your Pets (Hardcover)

Here's my take on some of the negitive comments made about this book - it may seem idealistic, but to me it's about raising the rep of "pet owner" to a new level, a higher standard. Working in an animal shelter as I do, I have seen what the author describes about abandoned animals and how easily they are discarded for frivolous reasons. I think a book like this is very needed not only to prove to people that owning a pet doen't mean being a dirty slob but it also reminds pet owners that they need to work out problems and try to think of creative solutions to issues they may encounter with their pets before they give up on a very special member of the family or resort to mutilating their animal (cat declawing).
Not all of us can afford designer furniture, that's true, but I have enjoyed seeing the photos of these animals and their loving owners who are showing the world that Fluffy or Spot have just as much right to sit on that million dollar couch as they do. I have seen sloppy pet owners and I think we all need to be reminded that we have a responibility to keep things on a higher level for the health of the animal as well as the impression we give to others.
Any book like this that promotes adoptiong animals from shelters and giving them good, loving, healthy and above all PERMANENT homes is truly invaluble.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great gift for the pet lover, November 2, 2001

By 

Emily L. "Emily L." (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Animal House Style: Designing a Home to Share with Your Pets (Hardcover)

I adore this book and plan to give it to all the pet lovers on my christmas list. It is so respectful and not condescending to animals and their owners, who sometimes go to great lengths to make their pets happy and comfortable. Owning pets should be a way of life, and IS a way of life for anyone that does it seriously and well. This book shows how people have opened their homes and their hearts to their animals through beautiful, unforgettable pictures and profiles.

49 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Stylish Read for fashion followers, December 27, 2002

By 

A. M. Thomas (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Animal House Style: Designing a Home to Share with Your Pets (Hardcover)

I should imagine this book is a great hit with the NYC apartment upper income bracket, who have pets as fashion accessories and treat them like animated teddy bears. (Most of the resource references are also in NY). Not that it's not a pleasant read, it's a stylish and entertaining book. It made me feel better about having slip covers on my furniture. The author got of the point at times and did the usual mini-lectures on pets put in shelters and toxic cleaners like the rest of us don't get it, but being politically correct is not the same undertanding the needs of real animals or the people living with them on a daily basis. The author may do work in "rescue" as she claims, but so can anyone. I don't think she understand the needs of real pets living real lives and probably none of the people who love this book do either. The author didn't offer anything I didn't know or hadn't tried (and didn't work). And some of the materials she raves about as coverings, were trashed by my two dogs in one afternoon. White slip covers ("you can wash them") Yeah, about 3 times a day to keep them white if you have a pet who gets on the sofa. Nice glossy coffee table book though.