When you have pets in your home, you've already discovered it can be a bit of a challenge to decorate and design easily. Pets love us to pieces but they are prone to leaving dirty paw prints and hair all over those beautiful designer area rugs and the freshly re-upolstered furniture. Dogs aren't usually taught to wipe their feet when they come inside; cats just love to choose the most expensive furniture to sharpen their claws on; and both of them just adore lounging in the prettiest places of our homes.

These natural tendencies are what makes it so difficult to decorate a home nicely when pets live there. And once the new interior design is in place of course, then we discover how difficult it can be to keep it all looking luxurious and stylish with our four legged friends around.

Thankfully there are many pet friendly choices for carpet and fabric that are also quite beautiful and stylish. By taking your pets into consideration before creating your new design style, you'll save yourself a lot of frustration and grief in the long run.

Here are some beginner tips to help you select the best types of pet friendly fabric for your home design:

Solid colored fabrics will show pet hair much more easily than mixed colors. Choosing print designs and tweed fabrics for your furniture upholstery or slip covers is an excellent way to help mask pet hair on your furniture. Any type of complicated or intricate patterns and designs work the best for hiding pet hair too, so decorating with oriental or persian rugs will give you the best camouflage for both pet hair and paw prints too.

Since you can't guarantee your pets will never use your furniture while you're away from home, the safest bet is to treat everything with a protective treatment such as Scotchgard. Have fabric treatments applied to furniture as well as carpets and throw rugs to ensure everything is protected as fully as possible.

Smooth fabrics work wonderfully for keeping pet hair at bay. Leather and microsuede for example, don't collect the hair nearly as easily and they're simple to wipe off. These types of fabrics are more prone to damage from cat claws and dog toenails though.

If you plan to decorate your floors with wall to wall carpeting, choose commercial grade carpets instead of residential. Commercial carpeting is designed to release stains more easily, and it's made to handle large amounts of traffic or general wear and tear.

The last and possibly best interior decorating tip you'll find for homes with pets is to cater to their natural tendencies. Instead of trying to keep your dog off the furniture for instance, give him a piece of furniture all to himself. Purchase a dog bed that fits the design style of the room you'll have it in, and she'll be thrilled to have a cozy "couch" of her own.

The same approach can be taken with cats too. Before you buy a brand new furniture set the cat will be sure to love sharpening his claws on, buy him an alternative that's just his. A carpet covered cat post or hiding hole make wonderful places for kitty to sleep, hide, play and scratch. So buy hers first and give her time to get use to it, then you can safely buy your new designer couch.

Decorating Tip: When you're ready for more excellent house design and decorating ideas, be sure to browse through some of the wonderful home decorating and house pictures we have available for free at HouseDesignIdeas.com!