Matty and I had been wanting to build something wonderful yet tasteful for our feline babes -also known as the snobs- ever since we bought our house. Maggie and Evey had a kitty condo, but only Evey utilized the scratching post and top perch. Maggie didn't want anything to do with it unless I sprinkled catnip all over it.
We have this weird and very high corner shelf in our bed room that the previous owners must have used for a television. We had envisioned putting up shelves so the snobs could get up there and have a fun place to chill. But every design either of us came up with the other didn't like, so we placed the idea on the back burner for a few years.
Then one bored winter evening, Matty and I pulled that idea back out and starting talking and rethinking the location, and The Fur Baby Court Yard (an otherwise empty part of our kitchen where we keep our canine's crates) seemed like the best place. So we started off by building faux shelves using cardboard and painters tape, attached them to our wall to determine the size, style and width apart. This allowed us to directly visualize how we would be positioning the real shelves. The following day, we purchased wood and simple wall brackets from Home Depot. We cut the shelves out and painted them the same Apple Core trim color, in kitchen (aka The Meat Show) and soon to be our Meat Show cabinets (that however is another 'shelved' project.).
Once the second coat of paint was dry, we simply installed them like any other shelf. For the top, where we expected them to lay, we nailed decorative molding (in a cat approved rope design), to give them a little more of an enclosed feeling on the highest shelves. For the tops of the walks, I purchased a pack of carpeted stair steps and cut them out in heart shapes and left the rectangles be for the first walk and for the very top two. The carpeted stair steps have a grip on the bottom side so I didn't have to adhere them to the shelves. Should we ever sell our nest, the shelves could be used for other purposes.
While we were at Home Depot getting our wood, we also bought a large cardboard tube normally used as a concrete mold. We cut it down to wedge between floor and one of the lower shelves. I wrapped Sisal rope, a hard natural fiber rope, around adding streaks of Gorilla Glue to attach the rope to the tube as I continued to wrap. This was to be their scratching post. *Note: it would be wise to use gloves during this part, as I was pulling the rope and pushing it down to be very tight, I got that crazy expandable glue under my finger nails and that was pretty painful.
A couple days after we first started this project, the catwalks were up and ready for some kitty sashaying. * applause.
Now just to kicK it up a notch and make their new catwalks look even more cat-tastic, I purchased some black kitty wall decals, hung some handmade catnip fishes, and topped the highest walks with comfy pillows at each corner.
The snobs give these CATwalks two paws up!
Content by: Agent J
