Homemade 'Rustic' Cat Tree

Remember back forever ago when Boyfriend and I built a cat tree out of debris from Hurricane Irene? I'm finally going to write about it. It had an accident and I finished screwing everything back together again yesterday. First, the finished product:

Homemade cat tree, placed strategically in my front window. With only half its sisal.

Looks good as home decor, too. Here pictured with all sisal in place.

The whole project took a couple days, plus a few more hours of gluing, screwing, and tightening. It was, I admit, a pretty giant pain in the ass. Still fun, though, and I'm very happy with the final cat furniture piece. Basically, what we started out with was...

:

3 Small-medium Branches

Leftover sewer pipe

Carpet Salvage (bought from Home Depot)

Plywood that was sitting around

I'm really lucky to have a boyfriend that works in construction. He had lots of tools and materials available, and he's very handy. Our materials were what was available at the time (except the carpet and sisal rope and some hardware, which were purchased). If you want to build your own cat tree, you could totally be creative. These 'rustic' hand-made trees can go for something like 700 bucks, and I got my inspiration from this awesome online store. 

We bolted the limbs to the plywood and then trimmed them to
height we wanted.

Once we had our limbs on the base, we decided we wanted a top cradle spot, good for cat-looking-out-window-and-maybe-sleeping business. We cut the pipe to the right length and then cut it horizontally to create a half-cylinder. This cutting was done with a pipe saw. I cut the carpet and glued it to our cylinder with carpet glue (patience is a must for gluing carpet--takes FOREVER to dry). Then we just screwed it to the two limb forks. We used the rest of the intact pipe as a nice hidey spot and our 2nd tree tier. I carpeted it, and then we just kind of wedged the pipe between our limbs, drilled holes where we planned to attach the pipe, and then screwed the pipe to the limbs.We had plans going into this project, but then for some reason, we disregarded them completely and just winged it.

After our two main tiers (pipe pieces) were in place, we decided there needed to be two smaller levels for jumping on. We cut them out of plywood to fit between the tree branches. After we created our 3rd level, it seemed obvious that we were going to run out of carpet. I decided to pad the third level with quilting fluff and then cover it in shiny gold fabric.

When we brought it home, Butter Bean was too small to really enjoy it. But she can climb it like a champ now. She sleeps in it at night and looks out the window during the day. It's like her bedroom.

She was so little when we brought home the tree!

After a few days of watching her on the tree, it seemed she was having some trouble getting over the big pipe and to the top levels. We cut one hole in the back-bottom and one in the top-front so that she can hop right into and out of the tube. This was done with a big hole saw. It turned out to be pretty successful, but it was hard to make the carpet look nice around those holes. 

Pipe holes are a success!

Pretttttyyyyy cute

Issues and warnings: If you're going to use a big giant heavy PVC sewer pipe like we did (it was free), use BIG screws or bolts to attach it to your tree. Ours fell down. Luckily the cat was not in it when it happened. Also, TREAT YOUR WOOD FOR BUGS. We didn't, and we had a little ambrosia beetle invasion. No big deal. They all died because they couldn't get any of the fungus they eat (their life cycle is pretty cool and I never would have known about them if they hadn't infected the cat tree wood, so it's all good). But you might get a more destructive beetle than we did and maybe your house will be eaten. So, let the wood dry before you use it. Treat it with some kind of glaze. I don't know what to do because clearly I didn't do my research, but you should google anti-bug wood treatments. 

Now that all the work is done, we can relax and enjoy our cat tree.
Butter Bean is pleased.

The only other cat I've had was adopted as an older man. Butter Bean, at 5 months old, is a wild thing. She's a monster. I'm really glad she has her cat tree to climb around on. She burns a fair amount of energy scampering up and down it. It's also her own personal space, up high where she won't be bothered but where she can keep an eye on things. I'm not sure how well it's prevented general destruction, but she does play on it and sleep on it all the time. She scratches on the sisal about as often as she scratches on her favorite chair in the living room, which I guess is a fair trade. I believe it was time well spent.