The Cat Tree

I finally finished the cat tree tonight. It took a lot longer than it should have, perhaps partly because it’s been a dissertation-procrastination strategy, but yeah, it’s done. I took pictures, too.

Up until several hours ago, this is how my kitchen looked.

Pretty bad. So what was I working on? Well, I’d been to the various pet supply places and seen the things they had for cats to scratch and climb, and they were ridiculously expensive. Like, something four feet high costing over a hundred dollars.

Now, the women I rent my apartment from and who own the flower shop on the first floor are twin sisters. In addition to being the prettiest women in this entire town, they’re the daughters of one of the local lumber barons. So we have some wood out back, and they said I could use whatever I liked.

I’m not much of a carpenter, but I drew up some plans.

The first step was to assemble some brackets and use deck screws to fasten them to the studs in the wall. Four screws total: the brackets aren’t supporting any weight; they’re just holding the thing in place. No problem to cover the holes with spackle and paint when I move out.

The intent was to have this thing totally modular: easy to assemble and dissasemble, so I can take it with me when I move.

The next step was to put together a shoe for the base of the tree’s post; something to hold it in place.

As you can see, it’s heavy, so it won’t move, even if the cats jump around. A single lag bolt goes through the shoe and through the base of the post, and deck screws hold the shoe together.

The post itself was easy: two 2 x 4s, fastened together with lag bolts and lock washers. It’s seven feet tall. The shelves, on the other hand, were not at all easy, especially in terms of getting everything to align properly. They’re 1 x 12s, and as you can see, the middle one split while I was working with it, so I had to suture it together. (I didn’t feel like doing all that drilling and sawing over again; I also broke a couple drill bits going too fast on knotholes.) I put the bolts in for one of the shelves, so you can see how it works: three lag bolts through the shelf brackets and through the post, because using only one or two bolts left the shelves too wobbly, and you know cats don’t much trust wobbly things. They’d never use it.

And yes, I know the floor looks filthy, but it’s really not. It’s just old. When I moved in, I was horrified by how bad it looked, so I rented a floor buffer and bought a couple scouring pads for it and stripped the floor with bleach powder and then ammonia, to no avail: it just got a little bit yellower and more porous. Yes, more porous. I figure the floor’s at least 30 years old. So I put down three coats of acrylic wax to seal it again, which is why it looks simultaneously dirty and shiny.

Anyway. So putting the shelves together was the hardest part; after that, everything was easy like Sunday morning. The post went up, and fit fine.

The shelves went on with no problem, other than requiring a ten-dollar eight-inch-long 3/8″ wood auger bit to drill the holes for the lag bolts.

And, most importantly, Tink approves.

She likes using it to check out the occasional ladybug or moth that goes up by the ceiling light. Zeugma still isn’t so sure about the whole thing, but I’m hoping she’ll get used to it.

There’s one last step, actually; I want to wrap the shelves and post in several layers of fabric and batting, so it’ll be easier and more comfortable to climb and hang out on, and also so the girls will be inclined to use it as scratching post, rather than putting their claws through the shoji screen you can see in a couple of the pictures. Christa recommended denim, which I think is an excellent idea, but I’d like something in an off-white so it doesn’t clash too horribly. So maybe a trip to the fabric store this weekend.

Right now, I’m happy to have it done.