Since the start we have struggled with how much to let our cats outdoors. Our laissez faire approach worked just fine in Oregon – they meowed to be let in and out, and mostly sat under bushes in the backyard and watched birds. But then in Boston things got trickier. There’s no backyard fence, and Edith started getting scared of dogs and pedestrians and refusing to go out. Teddy kept up his long outdoor adventures but then he got beat up. Twice. We didn’t have the heart to confine him to the little apartment 24/7, but his outdoor time has been restricted to a few morning hours.
In an effort to keep them entertained, Read started researching cat toys and cat towers. One day I came home and this picture was up on my computer screen:
HAHA! That thing is huge! And expensive. I pointed out to Read that these people have what appears to be a nice basement for their behemoth feline castle. We can’t really spare the floorspace for such a thing. But our cats do like sitting up on bookshelves and windowsills…they’d love some kind of high perch.
I went to one of my favorite sites – Ikeahackers – for some ideas on how to build cheap modern-looking cat furniture. I found a cat ladder, a cat tree, and links to this super-sweet perched bed:
IKEA is a long drive, so we just went down the street to Home Depot to see what we could find. Twenty minutes of wandering and we came home with:
There was much deliberating on the whole “one bracket or two” matter. Ultimately we decided (with the help of Brad at Home Depot) that one bracket per perch was enough because; our cats are petite, the perches are only 8″ long, and the brackets are really heavy duty.
The whole thing came together quickly. We cut the carpeting with kitchen shears and glued it to the boards, then screwed the brackets to the boards with a cordless drill, and screwed the perches to the wall. Here are a bunch of photos of what we made, all for under $30!
