What do you get when cross driftwood with a god-awful faux-hair ocean blue shag blanket? Leisure luxury viewing for the felines of the house. I wish I could say this was an original idea but I've been lacking in the originality department lately and this was actually borrowed from the some of the coolest cat towers we had a chance to see at
Canine Utopia. We had been talking sometime about getting our two not-at-all spoiled cats a perch of their own rather than make them mercilessly use the window sills when they wanted to enjoy a taste of the great outdoors but we were never a fan of the carpet on cardboard variety out there. When we saw the pieces of art in the store window we both thought, "Awesome. How much?" Turns out that it must take quite a bit of labor and materials to make the beautiful towers in the window because they were definitely out of our price range. So, being lucky enough to know some good sources of driftwood, a plan was hatched.
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Doesn't this just exude 'ocean'? That
would explain the sand in your shorts. |
Despite our original intention of going down to the river and selecting some prime driftwood ourselves, we happened to stroll by our neighbor's of two blocks away and noticed a large selection of driftwood lying up against their shed. It turned out nicely that they had done all the hard work for us intending them for another project but in the end only used one massive piece and had a bunch of timbers left over. We picked out four nice pieces and hauled 'em home. I left the wife in charge of finding the appropriate textile material to cover the platforms and, after her and the kiddo had a fruitful day at Goodwill, I came home to something unexpected. Apparently the cats were to get their very own ocean-at-home experience since they were unlikely to ever visit the actual beach house. What the heck, I ran with it.
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| Three legged stool anyone? |
To build, I pulled some excess particle board out of the basement that I had intended to use for watercolor backing for years but never needed; utilized some excess 3" screws to anchor the driftwood columns to the base; borrowed another small piece of OSB from a neighbor leftover from his chicken coop build; and ended up having to the hardware store for some 1/4" x 3" lag screws and accompanying washers. Sadly, the faux-hair ocean blanket was the most expensive item at $6.99 making a grand total of $8.68 if you don't count the beer that will be making an appearance on my neighbor's porch in the very near future. Compared to the approx. $500 retail price range we were looking at, I think we did fairly well. Sadly, I actually ended up with a larger chunk of excess OSB than the particle board I used for the base but now that all the excess lumber I had under the deck has gone to the beach, it can stay there for a few years.
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You'll notice only two tiers.
Two tiers = no tuna tier = unhappy cats. |
My original plans did include a third tier which my wife nixed as we do live in a small house and this was already looking like it might be a bit large. The cats, on the other hand, are demanding a third tier, replete with an unending supply of tuna. Dream big, cats, dream big.
