DIY Cat Tree, House and Scratching Post

Spencer, King of everything!

I was given a great spool. You know the giant spools electricians carry massive amounts of wire wrapped around? Well I was given one, and not gonna lie, the array of ideas that invaded my head of all the things I could do with said spool. This is what I came up with…

Cat tree…bed and scratching post. See they love it!

Off to my wood pile I went…

I went to my scrap pile and found some 1×6’s. It would do nicely to make the “lid” or rather the top to my kitty condo. I laid out three pieces of 1×6 boards and drew a circle using the “spool” as the template. You can use any size width wood and lay however many pieces it takes to get to the size you need. You could also use a piece of plywood and cut a whole circle instead of using the tree boards. But as I mentioned I wanted to use up my scrap wood. 😉

I clamped down each board and used my jigsaw to cut the shape.

One more to go!

All cut out.

Finishing the lid, I used 1×2 to connect the three pieces together. I wish I had a kreg jig to make pocket holes. But this method works too. 🙂

As you can see I used a lot of screws!

I set the lid aside and started to assemble the sides. Again going to my scrap lumber pile I was able to find 1×4’s.

Sanding all the pieces…I had to sand quite a bit, to rid them of the dents and discolorations. After sanding the boards I used a chop saw to cut the boards the height I wanted the “cat house” to be.

I contemplated using “L” brackets to hold the boards in place while I screwed each 1×4 to the top of the spool, however I ended up just screwing them straight to the spool using two screws per board.

I screwed two screws per board from the bottom. See the “L” bracket? I removed it as I found it wasn’t necessary and the clamps really didn’t help much either! 🙂

You can see from this pic that the boards are wonkie. Don’t let that discourage you! It will all work out in the end! Promise.

After all the boards are screwed from the bottom, I put the lid on and began to move boards into place so I could screw down from the top of the “lid”.

The wonkie boards will come together…wait for it…

I knew the screws would be showing. So I spaced them apart to be appealing to the eye! And see all the wonkie boards are in place as promised!

Onward!

To the base of the tree…I used sisal to give the kitties an awesome scratching feature! I achieved this by using hot glue and good rope. You don’t have to glue the entire base. You can glue a few inches, wrap the rope, glue a few more inches, wrap rope…and so on…Keep going until you’ve reached the desired look!

This is the rope I used. It’s sisal; a natural fiber. There was no odor on the rope. I’ve bought sisal before via online and gosh was that a mistake! The smell was so awful that no amount of soaking it in any type of solution would get the stench out! I make a point now to only purchase rope if I can touch it/smell it. This was from HomeDepot.

I started right under the sleeping quarter.

My helpers!

Glue and wrap, glue and wrap…

Another helper…

I stained the whole thing with dark walnut left over from a flooring job I did. I put three coats of water based poly after.

As you saw I stained the piece before I added the sisal. If I were to make another I would probably stain and seal beforehand. Though in the end, I was careful not to get any on the rope. This was an easy project that really didn’t take long at all. Maybe a couple of hours? The longest part was waiting for the stain to dry and the smell to dissipate.

The kitties really like it and this piece doubles as an end table! Remember the lamp shade I made? Here I staged the lamp on that. But since then, I’ve moved it about the room where ever an end table is needed!

This was a fun project and I was happy to create something for my furry friends. They really do like it and love scratching their claws on the sisal. I hope you enjoyed this post and it inspires you to make something for your pets too!

And as you can see…not just for cats!

Please like, follow, and share, your support means the world to me. It really does! ❤

From my furry friends to yours…All the best, Koko❀