$4 cat heaven

I’m here to talk about a hard truth we, as a nation, need to address: cat furniture is horrendous and needs to be stopped.

Let’s be honest, you will never hear someone say “that beige shag cat tree really brings the room together.” And who decided that the appropriate material for cat trees was beige shag carpeting anyway? Does anybody really like this stuff? Anybody?

I’m half-convinced the real reason for this material choice is a vast conspiracy between the carpet industry and pet retailers to empty stockpiles of the stuff that’s filled a New Jersey storage space since the eighties. And while there may be more artistic options available, I’m not going to spend $500-$2000 on an object whose primary functions are to be shredded and shed upon.

A big part of my resistance has been that I’ve refinished or built most of the furniture in my house and am unwilling to throw off all that loveliness with a carpeted jungle gym, so my kitties have suffered (yeah, right) in the name of aesthetics. This changed last Wednesday when I found this neat school desk selling at my local Goodwill for $4.

Initially I wasn’t very interested, but the $4 price tag held me long enough for a voice in my head to say “scratching post.” From there, things moved quickly. Full disclosure: by the time everything was added up—the chair, sisal, cat toys, fleece, jute, assorted hardware— total cost came to around $50

I have to say, the finished product is cuuute, and the cats adore it. They pretty much claimed ownership five seconds after I wrapped the chair back with sisal and love sleeping double-decker on the fleece pads now that winter is here.