I wish I’d come across this earlier – it would have been a perfect example for my article a couple of Sundays ago about how, more than ever before, we are living our lives, and furnishing our homes, around our pets.

It’s the “Hardwood Hideaway,” a wooden dog crate that’s also an end table.

It was developed by a Seattle family who had adopted a Redbone Coonhound and decided to crate train her. Around the same time, they were remodeling their home, so they decided to build a crate that fit in with their new décor. After a lot of requests from friends, they started making them for the public in 2005.

My dog Ace’s crate also serves as furniture, though not nearly as tastefully. It sits by the window near the front door of my rowhome, and serves to hold all my unopened credit card offers, mail from politicians and Baltimore Examiners until I get around to, uh, dealing with them.

I’ve thought about putting a piece of plywood on top and making the crate my kitchen table, but that would probably be unstable, not to mention torture for Ace, who prefers to watch, from as closely as permitted, every bite of food go into my mouth.

Have you come up with an imaginative second use for your dog crate? Share it with us by clicking the comment button below.

I came across the Hardwood Hideaway crate/tables in the back of Bark, the modern dog culture magazine, which was kind enough to list my blog in its “Online Kibble” section this month.