A House For The Cat (Boxed In)

A House For The Cat (Boxed in)

Part I.

To start with, I found some disposed kitchen furniture, and brought home two cabinets of various sizes. I took apart the larger one and cut the smaller one to the necessary size. While dismantling the cabinets, I learned some new details about the technology of making the kitchen sets.

The cut off top of the smaller cabinet was turned into an entrance to the future house, and the back wall of the larger cabinet was made into the missing right wall. Apart from a couple of planks I'll come back to later, so much for free cheese (outside of a mouse trap)! I bought 8 square meters of the cheapest office-type bluish-gray rug. 6 square meters might have sufficed, but I would have to engage in some creative cutting in order to cover the house with only whole pieces of material.

Vicky immediately realized that the house was being built for her, and indulged in sharpening her claws on everything she could lay her paws on.

Among the other materials I had to buy were nails and metal brackets, locks and rubber legs, bolts and hangers, SYNTHEPON (synthetic winterizer), a plastic pipe and a rope. Further on it will be clear what exactly all that is needed for. What each detail was needed for will become evident further on.

A cardboard pipe could, in fact, be used instead of a plastic one. At the store where I bought the rug one could obtain a very thick pipe-sized roll of cardboard with the rug wrapped around it. I could take it absolutely for free but due to the insufficient information the idea did not occur to me at the time.

The future owner of the house was extremely excited about the whole process, intently observed every step and even tried to participate. So, the house “skeleton” was now covered with the rug, with two layers of SYNTHEPON used for padding at the top. Now I can comfortably sit on the cat house myself. I hung the front wall on the hinges to simplify the access to the house for the purposes of cleaning, padding replacement, etc.

Voila! The house is ready and passed the field tests. My excited Vicky crawled all over it and tried her claws on every inch. My boldest hopes came true - she seemed to be delighted about the rug covering. The colors on the photograph would not come out in the exact shade, so I scanned a piece of the actual rug. I hope your imagination will do the rest.

Part II. Down the tube

An improvised “tree” for the cat is covered by the same rug material and extends from the floor to the ceiling. The top is affixed to the ceiling by the metal brackets while the basis stands on rubber legs. The shelves are also attached by the brackets. Since a screw put into a plastic pipe isn't too reliable, a rope is used to secure the junctions.

REMEMBER: A HAMMERED SCREW IS MUCH MORE RELIABLE THAN A SCREWED NAIL ;-)

I took a long plank, affixed rubber legs to its corners and used it as a base for the “tree”. The trick here is to g‎et it standing on the base with both feet as close to the pipe as possible, causing it to bend about 5 mm. That's the best position for screwing the pipe to the ceiling: the rubber legs become so firmly attached to the floor, that even a strong side blow or kick wouldn't topple or break the construction and there is no need to drill the floor.

Two shelves, marked by a wooden edge on the picture, were lined with SYNTHEPON. The other three shelves are simply half-centimeter pieces of wood wrapped in the rug material.

For the whole evening Vicky would not come down to the floor except when practicing jumping down from the shelves or leaping onto the tree with an obligatory touch of the ceiling. Having exhausted her playful mood, the tired and utterly satisfied cat cuddled on the fourth shelf, just above me and proceeded to observe me as I was creating this web page.

This time my expenses were as follows:

Rug - 8 square meters x 10 NIS per 1 meter = 80 NIS

A Plastic Pipe (3 meters) - 1 piece x 65 NIS = 65 NIS

Rubber Legs - 1 set (4 pieces) x 20 NIS =20 NIS

SYNTHEPON - 1 meter x 10 NIS (1,7 meter width)= 10 NIS

Screws and Nails - 30 NIS

Locks- 2 pieces (25 NIS for a couple)

A Rope (50 m)- 5 NIS

3 Hangers and 20 Metal brackets = 100 NIS

Besides, I had to buy a couple of necessary instruments: a Glue gun cost me around 30 NIS, and a file - 40 NIS

P.S. The currency, mentioned throughout these articles, is Israeli Shekel. According to the current exchange rate, 1$ = approximately 4,4 Israeli Shekels

P.P.S. For those who h‎ave some spare time and ‎speak foreign languages w‎hich these articles haven't yet been translated to : I would be very grateful if you could do the translations. Besides, if you find errors in the articles, do me a favour by helping me to get rid of them

A HOUSE FOR THE CAT (BOXED IN)