My First Attempt to Furniture Hack

Ah, it's definitely a long story leading to why I ended up furniture hacking. But before I go on with the reasons behind it (not just because I have too much time on my hand), here is the ultimate result. With only a screw driver and duck tape, I present to you the New and Improve Kitty Potty Area.

I removed the last level of the shelf so that the space is bigger and taped the blanket on the outside. Viola! No one will know that it's a stinky litter box from now on. Thanks for LL and KM for their contribution of that cloth. :D

I got the inspiration from Ikea Hacker. It has a wide collection of how people have hacked their Ikea furnitures to better suit their needs. Take a visit in the pet section, some people have done a super nice job concealing the litter box. I wish I had a full set of tools and saws so that I could have done the same. But so far, I am satisfied. :D


And...........here is why I had to hack my shelf....=P

After 5 hours of searching on an Chinese version of ebay (taobao.com), I came to the conclusion that cat tree are super cheap in China! I can get something simple and function for about 30 dollars Canadian. It is totally a bargain since I remembered it cost me about the same to get that little pathetic cat scratching post for MiKke couple years ago. That scratching post was so tiny that MiKke didn't get much use out of as she outgrew it in a month or two. Or, I can fork out twice as much ( 60 dollars) to get something as tall as 180cm and have multiple perching spots and a lot more fancy looking.

$30 vs. $60; either way, it's a total bargain.

Just when I was about to click the "I WANT TO BUY" button, I came across this website and I completely fell in love with the cat furnitures. The furnitures are absolutely adorable and functional at the same time. Most of the time, the cat furnitures (litter box, perching spots, cat tree, etc.) are so well made that one can hardly notice what it is. I just can't get over how cute the furnitures are! But they are super expensive too; the asking price is about 3 or 4 times more expensive than a regular one. One's gotta pay for the looks, eh?

Here are a couple I absolutely adore.

From left to right: Toy-brick modern cat tree in circular; Toy-brick modern cat tree (the pillar reaches the ceiling; the whole thing is more than 200 cm tall); Cat duplex house; Cat wall cloud as wall perch; sisal scratching roller dubbed as coffee table (man, how good can it be? functional for my feline friend and me!) =

I absolutely love the litter box idea. The litter box is hidden inside a cabinet that seals the odor and provide some privacy to the kitties while doing their business. The idea of separating compartment and mesh is to scrape litter off the cat's claw before they exit the litter box. And the vertical ones works the same way as the horizontal ones except the kitty have to go "downstairs" instead of just to the adjacent room.

litter box and how the cat can get in and out.

I was already in shock when I saw these cat furnitures, and then came the big finale. It's almost a real tree! I did not know cats can do this. This pillar is made with sisal and stand all the way from floor to ceiling and can be custom made to fit.

the cats having fun climbing a "tree"

Please go visit their website at http://en.catsweet.com/. It's definitely worth the visit. I think I must have spent over an hour drooling over these cute cat furnitures and eventually decide that it's too expensive to buy. =(

But after the success of the potty area, I think I just might make my own cat tree and cat furnitures. It'll be a challenge, but definitely worth my time and most importantly, it'd be so much fun! We'll see. :D