Full Crazy Cat Lady Mode - Catifying for Sparrow

Lyzzie

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Being mindful of Sparrow's nutritional needs was what brought me to TheCatSite. I didn't know that I was going to find a lot more! Reading about and seeing what everyone else is doing for their cat just sparked something, and now... I'm in Full Crazy Cat Lady Mode, except I only have the one cat (for now).

Since this is a community site, I feel that I can easily share "cat stuff" here. So here is it.

Full Crazy Cat Lady Mode - Catifying for Sparrow

So, after getting him a Kong Kickeroo (which he LOVES), a bunch of Da Bird knock off to play with him, walking with him everyday on harness and leash, and getting him the best wet food I can afford, I'm now interested in doing things myself. I don't have a lot of money, but lots of time. And it keeps me busy between work projects (I work from home).

I'm just going to give a bit of "humans" background here, feel free to skip it


And then a little "decorating" :


I put two different pieces of fleece (for free thanks to my mom, she has a lot of fabric left when she's sewing something) inside and outside.

I did two of these. The pictured one Kitty uses to sleep on top, so it's always out.

The other one is put away, and when we do play sessions outside, I just take the two boxes out in the courtyard, remove the fabric, and use them to hide "the prey". He loves to jump inside head first.

They're not pretty, but hey, I do what I can.

This one is to make the size of it more clear. It's a little box.


My hope is that the grass grows through the opening in the grate, and that Sparrow can munch on it without getting soil everywhere. We'll see. That one is way prettier than the cat cube



The kitty highway will begin from the mezzanine, right above the window in pic 3.

Then continues above the open closet in pic 2. Then a couple more shelves on the same wall, going left. Ideally, the two shelves would be staggered.

After that, I would love to be able to add a corner shelf high up left (see the corner wall in pic 1), and then one more shelf to reach the other end of the mezzanine.

SO is OK with everything, as long as he is not involved in the building process too much, so I would love suggestions, advices, opinions,... What do you guys think?
 

margd

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What a very, very lucky kitty you have!  You have some great ideas and I love how you made the fleece house out of the cardboard box.  I bet Sparrow likes to supervise while you are working.  
  I've never built any home made cat furniture so can't offer any advice but from my inexperienced eye, it looks like you're doing a fantastic job.  I hope you'll keep posting about all your projects as I'm sure a lot of people will find your ideas and techniques useful for their own kitties.  
 
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Lyzzie

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Thanks @Margd


He does supervise. On top of the first box, watching me like a hawk while I was building the second box...
 

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I think it's great what you are doing to catify your place!!  Cats do love empty boxes, don't they?  You might get some more tips from Cole and Marmalade on youtube.  One one of his videos, he made them a Christmas tree out of boxes.  One they could destroy so that they'd leave the real one alone, I suppose!  I'm going to have to find a container for my cat grass because it's outgrowing the bag it came in, but I like your idea of using the box with the slats to keep the soil in.  That's very ingenious!  
 

Kat0121

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All of this seems completely normal to me! 
 Sparrow is a very lucky kitty!! I have plenty of cardboard boxes around the house too. As soon as I think about getting rid of one, they become obsessed with it. It's like they know!  No one here will think that anything you are doing for Sparrow is odd at all. 
 
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Lyzzie

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@Ginny Thanks, I'll go check them out on youtube. That box I didn't want to throw away because my late grandpa made it. Good choice on my part, plus he was a farmer, so I bet he would have liked that I'm growing things in it


@Kat0121 It's so refreshing to be able to go full on cat craziness here. The only one I can really talk to about this is SO. And now you awesome people!


About the box, since it's wood, I should have had a layer of some kind in the bottom, so that the wood doesn't get moldy
I'll take care of that later.

I finally know how I'm going to make the shelves, and modify or build new furniture. Wood Pallets!

Once again, my mom's idea. She can have them for free, and really easily. Now I just have to actually build the things. Easy, right?
 
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Lyzzie

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I finally have time to update this thread!

I finally did all the rearranging with the furniture I had, and I'm happy with that, there are a lot more horizontal surfaces for Sparrow and his new foster sister Josephine to travel on.

I made the mistake of letting the cat grass box in the sun all afternoon (I forgot about it), and it was ruined. So I'm planting it again.

I've also come across a giveway here at TCS about handmade cat scratching posts.

I found them awesome, and I'm going to create my own, plus a cat tree for the courtyard outside.

I have I think 4 or 5 sisal posts left from an old cat tree, I just need a base for the inside post.

For the outside tree I have ideas, but I would love your input @Norachan, I'm following your thread on moving your colony (heartwarming BTW), and I know you built a cat tree with wood pallets, which is what I'm going to use. I can also incorporate sisal posts. Any advice on how I could begin? Do you apply a treatment on the wood to keep it from deteriorating outside?

I'm still going to do the cat highway, but I'm postponing it until Josephine is either adopted or a little older.
 
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ginny

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My cat grass died too.  But not from sun, maybe from lack of sun?  I tend to over-water too, so that may be it.  I'd love to get some new cat trees for my kitties but I'm not handy so I'll probably have to just buy one.  Boy are they expensive.  It's great that you know how to make these things and save yourself a bunch of money!  And I'm sure your kitties appreciate the work you do for them too.  
 

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My cat grass died too.  But not from sun, maybe from lack of sun?  I tend to over-water too, so that may be it.  I'd love to get some new cat trees for my kitties but I'm not handy so I'll probably have to just buy one.  Boy are they expensive.  It's great that you know how to make these things and save yourself a bunch of money!  And I'm sure your kitties appreciate the work you do for them too.  
Keep checking overstock.com.  sometimes they have pretty good daily deals on cat trees and shipping is very reasonable.  Big Lots, Costco and HomeGoods/TJMaxx also have good prices on cat trees.
 

ginny

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Keep checking overstock.com.  sometimes they have pretty good daily deals on cat trees and shipping is very reasonable.  Big Lots, Costco and HomeGoods/TJMaxx also have good prices on cat trees.
I never thought about overstock/big lots/tjmaxx! Thanks for the tip!
 

Margret

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I picked up a book at the perpetual sale at one of my libraries about making your own cat tree.  The title is Cat Condominiums and Other Feline Furniture: How to Make Them Inexpensively at Home, by George Ney with Susan Sherman Fadem.  ISBN 0-525-48430-2

Every one of the designs in the book makes creative use of tree limbs.  Shortly after I got the book, we had a real branch breaker of a snow storm, so I've been able to salvage enough tree limbs, in enough different sizes, to be able to make something good for Jasmine, but now I need a decent saw.  I saw a Skill Saw online for around $15 -- does anyone know how good this is?  I really can't afford to spend too much on the project -- if I could I'd simply be buying a couple of good cat trees for her.

@Lyzzie, you may want to check out these videos:



These folks have some excellent ideas (though rather labor intensive) about using vertical space for the benefit of the cats.

Margret
 
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Lyzzie

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Thanks @Margret ! I'm going to see how I can add steps. Why didn't I think of that?! They love the stairs, steps make so much sense.

Yesterday I finally got everything I needed, so building the cat tree begins today. I'm excited, and nervous, I've never done anything like this before. But my neighbor also loves cats and has a kitten, plus she is quite artistic, so we're going to do it together.

I'll try and take lots of pics, it should be fun!
 
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Lyzzie

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Ok, so I've got 5 wood pallets of different sizes, 3 long planks of wood, 6 sisal posts of the same size, 2 little tunnels, 2 little wood boxes. All of that is free, I either had it already, or went dumpster diving next to construction sites. I did NOT steal anything (just thought I mentioned it).

My mom is lending me a circular saw and a drill.

I bought cleats, molly bolts (that's for the shelves and the cat stairs inside the house) and some nails. I paid 23€, that's 25$.

If I'm as crafty as I hope, this will yield an outside cat tree, at least 4 shelves and mural cat stairs. If I can do it, that's going to be the best 23€ I've ever spent!!!
 

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:wow: Sparrow is one lucky kitty to have such a dedicated mommy :clap: :D You may find these threads/articles interesting:- [article="32835"][/article][thread="278647"][/thread][article="33177"][/article][thread="313305"][/thread][article="33177"][/article][thread="297074"][/thread][thread="319270"][/thread]

Have fun :D I'm sure Sparrow will too :winkblue:
 

bodester413

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That kitty highway is gonna be neat. I have a few shelves up for my cat and he loves them. Between the shelves and the cat trees he can almost get from the front porch to the livingroom without traveling on the floor....which he of course thinks is very cool.
 
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Lyzzie

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@Columbine Thanks! Lots of reading to do!

@bodester413 They can already go from the middle of the stairs to the back window and the front door without touching the ground. They love it!

Yesterday, I built the outside cat tree. One of my neighbor helped, and the other ones are going to decorate it. It's now a community tree, usable by any of our 4 cats. I'm lucky to have cat lovers for neighbors, they all loved the idea, and everyone is pitching in. I still need to add some cat hammocks, and the building part is done. I'll upload a pic later today or tomorrow.

After that, I'm building the shelves and the stairs. I also had another idea for transforming one of my own shelf. It's next to the window, but too tall for the cats to look outside. I'm going to cut the base so they can sleep on top in front of the window if they want to. Plus, they will access it from the mezzanine, more fun for them!
 
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Lyzzie

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A little update!

I haven't had time to do the hammocks for the outside tree. I found a job last minute, and then worked a 65 hours week last week. I'm not used to this! In France, a typical work week is 35-40 hours. I'm exhausted. Spent my Monday sleeping, I was up for 4 hours in the afternoon, then went back to bed. How do you guys do it???

Anyway, I did made the shelves next to the window. I didn't have to cut anything, it's naturally making steps from to window to the mezzanine. I just nailed carpet on top for comfort. That also gave them access to the top of the big closet. Also put some carpet there and an old fluffy sweater. This is Jo's new favorite spot to sleep at night, and Sparrow's to watch outside during the day.

I will get around to posting pics. As a matter of fact, I'm going to take them right now, otherwise it's never going to get done...

EDIT :

Ok, this is the outside cat tree :



We used 2 pallets, one for the base and one for the platform. The little one was already full, so that worked well. The 7 sisal posts I had already, the two little blue platforms and the tunnel I had also. We used the screws from the old cat tree. I needed 6 bolts, which were donated by my neighbor. Cost of the tree : nothing!!!

You can see Jo's head poking out the curtain at the door. She picked that up from Sparrow, of course.

This is a pic of the furniture, stairs and you can see the shelves near the window in the back. You can also see SO John trying to get down the stairs while not stepping on any cat in the process

The cupboard in front was actually the top of a big cupboard that I cut in two. I then flipped it, nailed a spare plank on it, and nailed carpet on that. The bottom of it was the top of it before, if that makes sense.

I already had the plank and the carpet. On the left you can barely see the top of a green trash bin, Jo's preferred platform to get to the counter on the far left.

Cost of the cupboard : a handful of nails.

This is a pic of the shelves, closet and mezzanine I was talking about. It was already this way, we just had so much stuff on top of it we didn't see it was perfect for the cats. I just nailed carpet on top of the shelves.


Jo climbs the shelves to get to the top stairs, closet and mezzanine. She jumps onto the mezzanine if she wants to go elsewhere. She also jumps from the mezzanine to the shelves.

Sparrow is too big to climb the shelves, he jumps to and from the mezzanine to get there.

Cost of the shelves : a handful of nails.

For now, they can go from the front door to the windows to the mezzanine without touching the ground.

Next step is the kitty highway. That will enable them to go to one end of the mezzanine to the other, as well as go downstairs without taking the existing stairs. I'm being careful of dead ends, and try and provide multiple escape routes.
 
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Margret

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Gorgeous job!

In answer to your question, very few of us have 65 hour work weeks, except occasionally.  The standard is 40 hours, anything over that is usually considered overtime and results in higher pay.  The exceptions are people who are on a salary (that is, being paid a set amount of money for the job rather than being paid by the hour, and salaries are generally higher to make up for it) and contractors, who are also paid a set amount for the job.  When bidding for a contract one has to estimate how much time it will take and bid accordingly.  Bid too low and you get the contract, then wish you hadn't.  Bid too high and you don't get the contract.  And if it's a company doing contract work, the company still has to pay their employees for overtime if they require it from them.  Also, people who are on minimum wage frequently will work two jobs, if they can find them, because minimum wage is too low to feed and clothe a family on a 40 hour week.

When I was a magazine editor I was on salary.  The magazine came out every other month.  Most days I worked a normal 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (with an hour lunch break), but in the week just before publication I would work longer hours, sometimes even all night getting all the last minute things done.  And the next day I wouldn't come in until noon or later.

Margret
 
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ginny

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Wow, @Lyzzie  you've done a great job and I sure hope those kitties appreciate your hard work!  The pics are cute especially of Jo sticking his or her head around the curtains!

I have worked 60 hours in a single week and that IS exhausting but for the most part I work about 36 to 40.  
 
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Lyzzie

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Update! It's been a while, so the first thing is, I'm done at my part time job, I can now go back to being a full time cat ownee! I'm really happy about that, I missed them, and John of course, a lot.

Sparrow is doing great, I added Feliway Friends last week, to help him cope with 3 rambunctious kittens. We discovered that 2 cats is his limit (and ours!). We do have a new resident cat, her name is Shadow, she's a 4 months old black kitty that we took from an acquaintance of mine. Poor cat didn't have any toys, or scratching post, nothing. Anyway, she's doing great, had her first round of shots, and is really playful now.

So, I have to get on catifying once again, with 2 resident cats, Sparrow is in dire need of safe spots! He loves the last shelves we did, with the carpet. I added a fluffy soft fleece, he likes to sleep there in the afternoon.

We also added a kitten cat tree, mainly for saving some space, and then decided "who need space? the cats!!!" and added a giant scratching post in front of the window.

We are finally doing the kitty highway, we chose the shelves and made a deal with our neighbor, he's going to put them up as soon as we buy them. I would have loved to make them myself, but oh well. I'm just waiting on my paycheck.

I also had another idea, since we have a mezzanine, I'm going to put at least two cat beds on the railings, facing outside the room. They're not that expensive, so that could be a welcome addition, one that would not take floor or wall space.

That's it for now, I hope I can share pics of the highway soon!
 
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