Dog Food Storage: Ideas to Go from Bland to Beautiful

Storing your dog’s food doesn’t have to leave a poor taste in your aesthetics. I love all things French, and always have. French-influenced clothing and decor, French desserts, French poodles… Okay, so the origin of the poodle is up for debate. But my status as a Francophile is not. This is the (petite) story of how our dog food storage went from plain vanilla to French vanilla!

From Antique Store to Antique Storage

They say taste is innate, but style is something you develop. My aesthetic was formed as a young teenager when my mother and I would visit the shops at the antique mall. Scratchy music records would fill the air with Etta James, Édith Piaf, and Louis Armstrong.

My mother and I would drift from booth to booth, often together. Or sometimes one of us would linger over a display, while something in a neighboring menagerie would catch the eye of the other. We would meet up later to show each other the treasures we found.

China teacups, old books, a little figurine—whatever had caught our eye that day—would be wrapped and destined for a special spot at home. Then we would have lunch, often in a little tea room.

Many years later, my mother and I were still antiquing together, but this time to procure items for two gift shops that we owned. We stumbled upon a French bakery cart, and it was love at first sight! The owner of the antique shop said the cart had been used in a restaurant to push the pastry offerings around to the patrons. It came home with us.

Dining in Our Little Corner of “France”

Over the years, the bakery cart lived at my mother’s house or mine, but it seems to have finally come to rest in my dining area just off the kitchen. It serves as part bar cart, part side buffet for everyday dishes, part display cabinet. But, occasionally, it again serves its original purpose: It holds pastries when Olivia and I host a tea for our friends.

The rest of the dining area, however, was not so French-a-fied. We also keep the dog food there, because it’s the most convenient spot to refill their food bowls. It’s not in the way of making coffee in the mornings (I take my coffee very seriously) or dinner in the evenings.

Our dogs go through a 25lb bag of dog food each month, and our previous galvanized feed bucket left much to be desired aesthetically. I upgraded to three small mini-step trash bins. But still, it was utilitarian when I wanted elegant—with just a dash of the unexpected. That’s when the idea came to mind, to expand on the French cart decor: The Puppy Patisserie!

Dog Food Gets a New Look (and a Double-Take!)

I found some acrylic apothecary jars on Amazon. The acrylic option was important to me in case a dog knocked one over; I didn’t want shattered glass everywhere. (So far, our pups have lived up to their Bee-Haven name and left them alone!) I also found some little acrylic measuring scoops to keep inside the jars. Two scoops of the smaller one equals ¼ cup, and the larger scoop is ½ cup. This setup makes feeding the dogs fun!

The vintage scale is perfect for setting their bowls as we fill them up—another find from an antique shop. Of course, the jars don’t hold the entire 25lbs, but the galvanized feed bucket holds the extra and can be tucked away in our pantry.

Next, what to do about the other corner of our dining room? It seemed awfully bare, but I remembered a project that another Instagrammer did: A dog treat dispenser! So I purchased a gumball machine on a stand and took it apart when it arrived. Black and gold spray paint gave it the refined, whimsical look I was going for.

It only took a couple of hours to go from a newly delivered box sitting on my porch to dispensing organic goodies. Best of all, it frees up cabinet space and the dogs love it! And I love how everything turned out. The new looks have become conversation pieces when friends come over.