Jazzed! We just finished our first diy cat tree!

[Echolane]

I LOVE cat trees! Well, so long as they are wrapped with sisal, not carpet. My cats LOVE cat trees. We just finished a fairly large catio on our deck which needs furnishing. It has a ledge running around all sides at about 4’ so we wanted to make access via climbing posts. Gives good exercise and solves a practical problem. But never having done one, we procrastinated. And procrastinated! I think the sisal I ordered from Amazon sat around for almost 3 months. We finally started and finished it yesterday and I am thrilled that it turned out so good. Makes me wonder why we procrastinated so long!

We used a 4x4 wood post. We cut off 2’ and wrapped until we ran out of 3/8” sisal. The finished post is 5’ and some inches tall and took 200’ of 3/8ths sisal. We secured the ends with staples, the kind you have to drive in with a nail. We used some caulking type adhesive (not much). And we wrapped really really tight and used a hammer liberally to keep the strands close as we went and I must say it looks almost professionally done.

Now it needs a base and we can put it to use. Internet research suggests we need to use a large lag bolt, but it also insists that the pre-drilled hole must be laser straight or the post will tilt. We don’t have a drill press so we might need to figure out some other way to secure the post to a base. No matter what we use, multiple smaller screws or a big lag bolt, the pre drilled holes need to be drilled straight. Our next challenge.

 

[IndyJones]

A level might be your best bet, a roofing square might help square up the top and the pole so it is flat. If you really want to keep it from wobbling you could try a biscuit joint or wood glue in addition to the bolts.

The key is making sure the face of the base and the face of the pole joint is flat and square.

 

[IndyJones]

Good idea making your own furniture, most of the stuff in stores is carpet which is extremely hard to clean pet mess off of and is a hair magnet. Also looks tacky Imo.

They are often overpriced and wobbly or too tall for a single floor apartment with loft. That's my biggest issue. My ceiling has a bulkhead that takes half a foot off my ceiling height. My guys are content sitting on the sofa back and on top of the ductless units fortunately.

 

[Echolane]

We managed to get a base on and it’s straight! The post was in place less than 5 minutes and both cats climbed it already!

 

[Echolane]

Good idea making your own furniture, most of the stuff in stores is carpet which is extremely hard to clean pet mess off of and is a hair magnet. Also looks tacky Imo.

They are often overpriced and wobbly or too tall for a single floor apartment with loft. That's my biggest issue. My ceiling has a bulkhead that takes half a foot off my ceiling height. My guys are content sitting on the sofa back and on top of the ductless units fortunately.

I don’t like carpets for the same reasons you suggest. Plus you just don’t know what chemicals they’ve been treated with. Besides all that, as a woman I am color conscious AND quality conscious. Most look like cheap c**p.

We were sort of forced into the diy mode by the cost of shipping. We found a great place to buy wrapped posts and we bought some for our cats and we installed them on an empty foyer wall, adding platforms to lounge on. We feed the cats several times a day on the top platforms so they are forced to exercise. Of course the cats use them anyway too. We love having them there and we also really loved the quality. Here's a photo showing the posts and platforms on one side of the door. On the other side of the door we later added a 7’ tall post and a platform that runs overhead the full length of the door. We will be renewing the sisal in the post on the floor now that we know how to do it. That was a freebie we acquired and we will probably replace the carpet from a source I can trust is free of chemicals.

Actually, here’s an updated photo of our foyer cat playground. The cats really like it. We are using carpet squares made by Flor. They are washable so I’m not so worried about chemicals and we can easily cut them to the right size and stick them to the managing platforms with double sided tape.

But when we wanted more posts for our outside catio I just refused to pay the high cost of shipping posts from east coast to west coast. It nearly doubled the cost. Now that we’ve finished one ourselves and it wasn’t that hard to do, we will make another tall one for the other side of the catio and a couple of smaller ones for inside the house.

 

[Purr-fect]

We managed to get a base on and it’s straight! The post was in place less than 5 minutes and both cats climbed it already!
View attachment 321607

Wow!

Lucky cats.

Greg and arnold MIGHT get a small catio this spring.

 

[Echolane]

Greg and arnold MIGHT get a small catio this spring.

That’d be nice! I hope they will like it as much as mine do. Both the resident cats knew exactly what to do and immediately climbed the new post. Not so, Romy, our recent feral cat addition. I finally picked her up and put her where she should have grabbed hold, but she didn’t have a clue. I guess feral kitties don’t run into sisal wrapped cat trees in the wild (haha). Anyway, I pretended to let go of her just a bit and she grabbed on but immediately went down. I wonder if she’ll ever want to use it.

 

[Purr-fect]

That’d be nice! I hope they will like it as much as mine do. Both the resident cats knew exactly what to do and immediately climbed the new post. Not so, Romy, our recent feral cat addition. I finally picked her up and put her where she should have grabbed hold, but she didn’t have a clue. I guess feral kitties don’t run into sisal wrapped cat trees in the wild (haha). Anyway, I pretended to let go of her just a bit and she grabbed on but immediately went down. I wonder if she’ll ever want to use it.

She will watch the others and learn. Im sure the natural desire to be high up will motivate her.

 

[basscat]

Looks Great!! Guess I'm late to base party, but it's the sqareness/straightness of the cut on the post that makes the base angle (not the direction of the fasteners/screws).
It's a JOB wrapping one of those and making it tight. That rope doesn't go near as far as one thinks.
Looks like you did an awesome job though!

 

[Purr-fect]

I LOVE cat trees! Well, so long as they are wrapped with sisal, not carpet. My cats LOVE cat trees. We just finished a fairly large catio on our deck which needs furnishing. It has a ledge running around all sides at about 4’ so we wanted to make access via climbing posts. Gives good exercise and solves a practical problem. But never having done one, we procrastinated. And procrastinated! I think the sisal I ordered from Amazon sat around for almost 3 months. We finally started and finished it yesterday and I am thrilled that it turned out so good. Makes me wonder why we procrastinated so long!
View attachment 321595
We used a 4x4 wood post. We cut off 2’ and wrapped until we ran out of 3/8” sisal. The finished post is 5’ and some inches tall and took 200’ of 3/8ths sisal. We secured the ends with staples, the kind you have to drive in with a nail. We used some caulking type adhesive (not much). And we wrapped really really tight and used a hammer liberally to keep the strands close as we went and I must say it looks almost professionally done.

Now it needs a base and we can put it to use. Internet research suggests we need to use a large lag bolt, but it also insists that the pre-drilled hole must be laser straight or the post will tilt. We don’t have a drill press so we might need to figure out some other way to secure the post to a base. No matter what we use, multiple smaller screws or a big lag bolt, the pre drilled holes need to be drilled straight. Our next challenge.

Even if the 4 x 4 isnt secured perfectly at 90 degrees to the base, you could simply shim the base slightly to make the 4 x 4 stand perpendicular. Then screw the base to the deck. Little tricks to make things look straight...needed to learn some, as im not a natural carpenter.

 

[basscat]

Even if the 4 x 4 isnt secured perfectly at 90 degrees to the base, you could simply shim the base slightly to make the 4 x 4 stand perpendicular. Then screw the base to the deck. Little tricks to make things look straight...needed to learn some, as i m not a natural, carpenter.

The mark of a good carpenter is not how good your work is. It's how well you hide your mistakes.

 

[basscat]

Echolane
By the way, if ever you decide to head across the country.....Bring your tools!! I'll let you hone your catio construction skills to pefection!

 

[betsygee]

Echolane Great job on the catio and the cat tree!

 

[Echolane]

Thanks everyone for kind remarks. We are THRILLED with it. My husband did a great job putting the catio together though we struggled installing the complicated gate hardware I chose. But the main thing is the cats LOVE it. Gemi, my brown female, is reluctant to come in even when it gets quite cold. I have to finally insist because I leave the door open about 4” so they can go in and out and my heating bill is going to be ENORMOUS this month. I’ll have to invest in one of those extensions to a sliding glass door that has a cat flap for coming and going. And we need more toys and things. I have just ordered more sisal rope from Amazon and we will see if we can make a second post look even better.

 

[Echolane]

Looks Great!! Guess I'm late to base party, but it's the sqareness/straightness of the cut on the post that makes the base angle (not the direction of the fasteners/screws).
It's a JOB wrapping one of those and making it tight. That rope doesn't go near as far as one thinks.
Looks like you did an awesome job though!

That’s good to know! The advice I followed with respect to attaching the post to a base spoke about needing something or other on the drill so it’ll drill perfectly straight, especially since the Recommended lag bolt is quite long. So I assumed a straight drill hole would be necessary for keeping the post straight.

We were really surprised at how much sisal it takes! Way more than I expected. I was also glad I found a pair of leather gloves to use, otherwise my hands would have become blistered or shredded.

I LOVE the photo in your post. What a gorgeous cat! Guessing it’s a Bengal, but on second thought, it looks too big to be a Bengal, so I’ll have to ask - what kind of cat is it?

 

[Echolane]

Looks Great!! Guess I'm late to base party, but it's the sqareness/straightness of the cut on the post that makes the base angle (not the direction of the fasteners/screws).
It's a JOB wrapping one of those and making it tight. That rope doesn't go near as far as one thinks.
Looks like you did an awesome job though!

That’s good to know! The advice I followed with respect to attaching thr post to a base spoke about needing something or other on the drill so it’ll drill perfectly straight, especially since the Recommended lag bolt is quite long. So I assumed that would be necessary for keeping the post straight.

I LOVE the photo in your post. What a gorgeous cat! Interesting to me, actually especially interesting to me, because I often wonder about the ancestry of my two cats. They were found on a street at about 2 days of age, so nothing is known about them. They turned out to be really large and exceptionally lengthy. I call them my Dachsund cats. Your cat’s anatomy is similar to Timo and Gem. I have

 

[Telstar]

Amazing! I always wanted to make a catwalk in my work room.
There is a company who makes these things in my Country, they are beautiful but very expensive.

 

[basscat]

That’s good to know! The advice I followed with respect to attaching the post to a base spoke about needing something or other on the drill so it’ll drill perfectly straight, especially since the Recommended lag bolt is quite long. So I assumed a straight drill hole would be necessary for keeping the post straight.

We were really surprised at how much sisal it takes! Way more than I expected. I was also glad I found a pair of leather gloves to use, otherwise my hands would have become blistered or shredded.

I LOVE the photo in your post. What a gorgeous cat! Guessing it’s a Bengal, but on second thought, it looks too big to be a Bengal, so I’ll have to ask - what kind of cat is it?

That's 50 lbs of bobcat that fell asleep while playing with his scratching post

 

[Loving Mickey]

Beautiful job!
I can see how happy your kitties are.
I am not handy at all , could never accomplish something like that.
My kitties will just need to accept store bought cat trees and beds and so on. Luckily , they do and are very happy!
Again , great job!

 

[dustydiamond1]

Hi, Gypsy has shredded her cat tree posts. I've watched many videos and I should be able to rewrap. Just wondering if I should use the original sistil rope or use a different material such as hemp rope. Appriciate any input. Thanks