The cat tree is complete!

Some of you may recall that I was planning to build a cat tree. I posted some pics of phase I several weeks ago. And we’ve finally finished it! Phases II and III were implemented over the last two weeks. Will there be a Phase IV? Who knows? We do have a different direction to go in if we’d like.

If anyone is interested in the logistics:
Although I did find some fairly reasonably priced trees online they wouldn’t have worked for us. Our space is small and my two cats like different things. Poppy likes to hide out but most houses were much too small for her (she’s a big girl at around 19 pounds). Sophie likes to run and jump, so the ramps were made with her in mind. But I’m report that they’ve both been all over this thing and both have used the house.

Sizes: The house is 18×18x18. I decided on the height of the second level based on where the chair rail was, and my idea of how high they’d each jump. The rest of the design was based on existing furnishings - the ramp goes to an existing bookcase and is bolted to it. The ledge over the french doors just flowed out of that.

The ledges are plain pine boards, 12″ wide and 1″ thick (to prevent flexing). We used large L-brackets to bolt it to the existing woodwork over the french doors. The ramp is only bolted to the bookcase. The long dowel you see running along the wall is because there’s a gap there and I didn’t want them to feel insecure if a foot slipped through.

The rest of the materials were scraps from Restore (a used building supply store).

Prices:
Scrap wood - $6
Dowels (legs and on ramp) - $20
Pine boards: $12
Carpet: $60 (I could have spent half that amount or less but I loved this carpet!
Total: $98 give or take.

You might not be able to see it, but I stained the exposed wood to match our existing woodwork and I painted the L-brackets so they wouldn’t stand out so much. I also sprinkled catnip liberally and even resorted to treating to get them to try it out!