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Creature comforts camouflaged

Tables built to conceal crates underneath and pet accessories styled by distinguished designers let the fur set's personal items blend in with their people's home decor.

By JUDY STARK
Published July 29, 2006

	[Photo: Crate Haven Designer Crate Solutions]
	Handsome, no? Not the dog, though he certainly is, but the occasional table, which houses a crate.
	[Photo: Design Within Reach]
	This Lucite pet bed comes in three sizes, $498-$978.

Our dogs love their crates: snug dens where they can hang out or snooze, get away from the family's hustle and bustle, gnaw on a toy, feel safe. For house training and for general pet well-being, crate training gets two paws up in veterinary circles these days.

But not in decorating circles.

Turn the pages of the fancy shelter magazines and you'll look in vain for a pet crate in a living room or family room. What decor is enhanced by a coated-wire cage? We don't live in kennels.

Look online or in catalogs and you can find some with wicker sides, or with fabric covers and bumper pads. But it's hard to make them blend in, given that they're 2 or 3 feet long and 27 inches high or more, big enough for a dog to stand up and turn around in. Putting a crate in the living room is like adding another piece of furniture.

That's the problem Claniece Moore, 41, faced when she moved into a home in the Crescent Lake neighborhood of St. Petersburg. "The floor plan was not conducive to dogs having crates here," said Moore, whose family includes Salty, an 8-year-old golden retriever, and Fern, 10, a poodle-with-something-else who found her way to Moore's home after she was abandoned at Crescent Lake Park.

Moore picked up carpentry skills as a child growing up in Miami, watching adults, and is an experienced fixer-upper, so "we put a few things together and invented a crate table," she said. It is a finished piece of furniture - an end table, nightstand or accent table - with an opening that accommodates a standard crate.

Now she operates her own business, Crate Haven Designer Crate Solutions, offering three styles, named after her children (daughters Hunter, 15, and Avery, 12, and son Harrison, 10). They are handmade in a woodshop in Ocala in various hardwoods painted black or white or stained in one of three shades of brown (camel, mahogany or the most popular, savoy, a warm medium brown).

They range in price from $429 to $649.

The crate tables have been featured on HGTV's I Want That, Good Morning America, the Today Show and the Early Show.

Moore sells them through her Web site (www.cratehaven.com) and at trade and dog shows.

* * *

Hip urban pets need appropriate surroundings. If their people are going to sit on architecturally distinguished chairs and eat at tables designed by the big names, why shouldn't the dog do likewise?

And what hip urban dweller in a condo or loft wants to spoil the decor with unfashionable pet accessories?

Design Within Reach, the catalog that offers furniture by distinguished figures in modern design, recently added a line of pet products: beds, toys, feeding stations in lucite, metal, wood and fabric. There are even chew toys inspired by feng shui. See more at www.dwr.com.

[Last modified July 27, 2006, 12:39:01]