The Cats Own the Living Room
(and most of the rest of the house too!)
To give credit where credit is due, this unit was Tim's brainstorm. He brought the original pole (in the corner) with him when he moved in with his first cat, Popcorn. We had it in the sunroom, where we could see it as we sat on the couch watching TV. When we got the kittens, Tim would move it to the living room and play with them. They'd spend all night running up it, flipping around and coming back down backwards. After a few days, I'd get tired of walking around it, and move it back to the sunroom. We did this routine for months. I really wanted him to build it in the sunroom, but he proved to me that they used the pole more when it was in the same room as us. He won. The only thing in the living room now that I can say I own are a couple of candles and plants. I think I can claim the carpet too. <G> However, I've got great plans for the next one we build. We just need to find a house with the perfect room for it. It will be much bigger than this, that's for sure!
This structure started life as a 8' carpeted subwoofer tube:
In the first pic, you can see how the bottom was laid out. Once we caught the kittens, it just took too much of a beating and started to separate from the pole. The pole was originally built for Popcorn (middle pic), Tim's first cat. In the third pic, you see Zeus on it. We had to tape up the top because the kittens were small enough to fall inside.
(please excuse the bizarre shadows on the flash pix. we had recently gotten a new camera with a built in flash. i wasn't used to not being able to adjust it)
11/26/99 update: we ran over to Lowe's today to grab some weatherstrip for the garage, and $95 later we have weatherstrip and an addition to the scratching pole. You see, Missy came to us with no front claws. Last night she watched as the other cats ran around on the pole. She wanted to get up there, but hadn't figured out how yet. I knew she would eventually learn to jump from the couch to the ramp. After all, that's what Kearra does, even though she does have claws. As we're walking in the store, Tim says "I was thinking........" Uh oh. The addition is pretty much complete except I'm not happy with the carpet. It starts in the dining room (Tim "because we don't use it anyway") and ends up in the living room. It's a couple of nice gentle ramps with resting pads. And the original ramp was replaced with a carpeted piece of wood. And do you think we could return the full piece of wood we had left over? Nah, we had to make the living room ceiling run a bit bigger. <G> Pix will be put up as soon as the roll is developed.
More Pix:
Left Side
Ramp
Detail
Cats, cats & more cats
November 26, 1999