|
Hi there! Long time since I last posted. My husband and I are the co-authors of the Tail, Brain, and Leg Deficiency Thread that's now archived. Since then, we've added another cat to our collection (though I haven't decided what he's deficient on yet) and bought a house. One of my dreams has been to have a cat room in any house that we bought, so because I took a staycation between Christmas and the New Year, I went about starting it. Also because our brain deficient cat, Minerva, has been having a suddenly rough time with the fact that the other cats exist.  The culprit. Minerva is about five years old, just went to the vet and got a clean bill of health, and while she doesn't like the other cats, she is generally all right as long as no one bothers her. If any of the other cats do bug her, she screams like someone's skinning her, even though 99% of the time the other cats have simply been in her presence or given her a weird look. Our house is also about 2400 sq. ft., so she has plenty of space to get away from them most of the time. Her favorite thing in the world is her 7-foot tall cat tree.  Minerva, clearly the epitome of dignity and grace. The main perpetrator is our newest kitten, Conan: Destroyer of Toes. Just Conan for short, but as his nickname suggests, he loves biting toes. (We're working on getting him to stop, but he seems to like only doing it to me, so I guess my toes are just biteable.) He's just shy of 6 months old, is big for his age, fluffy, and loves playing with his brothers. He doesn't get why his new big sister doesn't want anything to do with him. (Sorry, kid, she's just anti-social.) Here's a time lapse in photos of Conan as a wee babe to what he looks like now. Prepare yourself for how fluffy and handsome he is.  Just before we brought him home.  On Minerva's cat tree.  With Ahab, our leg deficient cat.    Obviously, we don't give him enough love, so he's just wasting away.  Such majesty...  What poise...    Now onto the stuff you came into the thread for. Knowing that she's a "tree cat," I set out to make cat heaven for Minerva in the smallest room in our house (possibly less than 100 sq. ft., though maybe just around that) that the previous owner used as a playroom for his kids. I figure it wasn't much of a leap from kids to cats. I spent between $175-$200 in the materials thus far and would like to make some tweaks to it from here. All told, I think it took about 7-8 hours of work.      True to form, the rear end in a top hat I made the room for has no interest in going in it.  I attempted to shame her, but drat it she's still cute and clueless. The other cats, however, love it.  O'Malley, the tail deficient cat, and Conan enjoying the new window seat. It's about 18 pounds of cat on that thing, so it's not going anywhere.  I'm going to give Minerva a couple of days to see if she warms up to the room. She is, after all, our little ball of anxiety in cat form. Feel free to ask any questions about our cats, the process of creating a cat room, or post pictures of your own cat room/cat stuff! (I'd love ideas on what to do next!)
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 01:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 14:12 |
|
|
How're the wall mounted shelves? I've always heard they're too unstable to handle cats.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 15:30
|
|
|
I ended up coming back and putting brackets under the wall mounts to help stabilize them. Little triangle shaped shelf mounts (technical term, naturally). They've done the trick quite nicely. The corner shelves have held up very well without additional help. To illustrate, I've got an 8.5 lbs cat who nearly fell off the shelf after I put the additional mounts on the shelves. I say nearly because he then hung on for dear life by one paw, crying for me to help him even though he wasn't even a foot from one of the cat trees and could've easily fallen onto it. Instead he chose to flail for half a minute until he managed to catch his other paw on the shelf and pull himself up. Shelf didn't even move. And my 6.5 lbs kitten and my 12 lbs cat sleep in the bakery under the window pretty much daily with three shelf mounts under it. So far, so good. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 04:36
|
|