Im a dog owner and I spent $1,000 to transform my spare bedroom into the perfect pet retreat

Forget the old, rickety backyard doghouses of yesteryear.Dogs these days are getting decked-out bedrooms of their very own!30-year-old Elizabeth Lang recently moved to Nashville, TN, and knew she wanted to turn one of her empty rooms into a blinged-out bedroom for her golden retriever, Pearl.Lang told Newsweek she spent $1,000 on the supplies, paint, and decorations to design the doggie bedroom for Pearl’s birthday.It features a dog-sized sofa, ball pit, wooden doghouse, rug, and toy basket.The room reveal has been seen by more than 2 million people on Instagram and more than 300,000 people on TikTok.Pet ownership is on the rise.

59.8 million people have dogs in the United States, and 42.2 million people have cats—and most are spoiled rotten.“Nowadays, it’s all about fully furnished dog suites, complete with wallpaper, plush beds, and even chandeliers,” says interior designer Magda Callery.Pet parents are sparing no expense.“More and more people are investing in creating spaces that are tailored to their pets, and homes are even being renovated and custom-built with their fur babies in mind,” says Mattie Sheppard, strategic interior design advisor at Real Estate Bees from Jacksonville, FL.“As pets are looked at as being true family members, pet owners have decided their fur babies should have style and comfort just as they do.”If you create a doggie bedroom, would that be a selling point when you move? “For pet owners, absolutely,” says Ron Myers of Ron Buys Florida Homes in Wellington, FL.

“It’s a great conversation starter and adds charm.But, for non-pet owners, it’s just extra storage.

Either way, it’s a creative use of space.”Nationally, the number of guest bedrooms—defined as a bedroom that is in excess of the number of persons in the home plus one (to account for an office)—reached the highest levels in Census record history in 2023.That number reached 31.9 million extra bedrooms in the U.S., up fro...