My catnip dream

After getting our first cat Sara, I wanted make sure we had places for her to scratch, sleep and release her feline instincts.  I'm not a fan of the carpeted cat trees, in fact, I think they're hideous so I set out to find something I could use to make my own cat condo.  We also wanted our cats to be indoor cats because we live next to a road, have a large dog that lives behind us and raccoons that frequent our neighborhood.  I couldn't imagine the poor things being cooped up in the house never to experience the wonders of the outside world, however, so I also starting searching the Internet and brainstorming ideas for building a "catio".

I found this plant stand at an antique store for $12 and a few rolls of burlap for $9.  I added driftwood for them to scratch on.  Sara uses the wood all the time for her nails because we taught her when she was young what was okay to scratch on.  Penelope uses our couch, she's a work in progress.

For our "catio", I had to find some way of making our back deck safe without attaching anything to the structure itself.  I found several different types of  grids you make storage cubes into at thrift stores and on craigslist.org.  You can also buy them new from several different stores such as Target or online.  It took me several attempts before I found a pattern that would fit just perfect and a height that would prevent them from the great escape.  I would recommend using a rubber mallet to tap the connectors onto the grids because they can be difficult to snap into place with your hands.  I started by building the bottom layer of one side flat on my deck then set it up where it belonged and attached the rest one by one to insure a tight fit working layer by layer.  I got lucky and it all fit perfect so we didn't lose any deck space.

 
During the summer we leave the backdoor open so they can come and go as they please and enjoy the sunshine.  Our red ear sliders even get to enjoy the warm weather while Sara babysits.  Since there is no top, and just to be safe, we never leave the door open while we're gone.  Some cats are sneakier than others so I would keep an eye on them if you decide to build this type of structure.

I added cafe lights to the top making it an enjoyable space for us at night.  I think the cats like it even more because  they can go on the hunt for bugs drawn to the light.