Stupidest cat DIY

[exlibris]

Confession: I just carpeted the windowsill so the kittens didn't get cold paws whilst looking at birds.

Anyone else this daft?

[alanc]

Seems perfectly sensible to me!

[fjm]

My floor is practically carpeted with cosy beds, there are steps and ramps around the cat flap, towels on the windowsills, fleeces against the radiators, and a friend is busy knitting Poppy a new winter jumper! Carpeted window sills sound perfectly sensible to me, too.

[lilynmitz]

You are officially bonkers. Welcome to the club. I have fleeces on window cills, beds and blankets all over the place, toys everywhere, steps on each side of the catflap, we built lookout posts for the cats in the garden, I colditzed the garden to keep the cats safe from the road (much to the hilarity of neighbours, builders, window cleaners and visitors - and the builder who did it for us had fenced the lion enclosure at the local zoo....). But our piece de resistance? We have a sheet folded up lengthways tied to the bannisters to stop Toby splintering the bannister rain when he runs up them.

[Mollycat]

I have a window sill for cats. By which I mean, when I moved in (to a rented flat) it had one of those windows at the top and UPVC plastic at the bottom, 8ft wide. For the cats, I fitted a window sill so they had somewhere to sit and look out. Bonus hot tip if you have these, I put wooden cladding under it with loft insulation behind and the room is a whole lot warmer now.

I have thought about carpetting it but am worried about the rain getting in and rotting the carpet.

The bathroom door opens outwards into the hallway but must always be left open due to cat litter tray being inside, so at one time I had system with a spring and a string pull that meant to close the door you had to pull the string and if you didn't then the door would bounce slightly open, enough for cats. Can't remember how it worked exactly but someone visited with a child and when they left the whole thing was on the floor.

We bought a new bed in king size with the underbed storeage drawers standard double size specifically for the cats to have a hiding place under the bed between the drawers.

My Misha had a ramp from the first floor window to the top of the porch so she could come and go as she pleased.

Sarah cat had a hole cut in the bottom of the shed door for her, as she was the first cat I ever had that insisted on being left out with the door shut when we went out. Sarah never used it. A hedgehog took up residence. I made a proper hedgehog box, apparently for Henry cat to use as a step up onto the wall.

My crazy New York Jewish vet aunt had her kitchen built by a carpenter friend, incorporating a hot cat bed above the radiator for her Burmese collection. She also had a cat flap put in the window above her front door to avoid spoiling the Georgian door and steps up the wall one side and back down the other. One morning she got up to find SIX LIVE guinea pigs the cat had brought in during the night.

[Ruth B]

Oh dear, I'm feeling quite mean to my cats now, they have to put up with normal windowsills and very little done around the house purely for their benefit. The one thing we do have is an old single duvet permanently taking up part of the landing. When we first introduced a new cat to the house they had to be shut in the lounge, it is the only room available that we can separate a cat in. This meant that i decided that it wasn't fair on the resident cats as all the comfy chairs were in the lounge, and we didn't let them in the bedroom at night, so they had the dining chairs and that was about it, so an old duvet was put down, with my dressing gown on top (I didn't use it a lot so it wasn't a big loss to me), the dressing gown may have been reclaimed, but the duvet is still there and we just walk over it to get to the back room. All the cats have slept on it at one time or another and one or two have even been know to sleep in, burrowing under a layer to make a little cave for themselves.

Where I lived with my parents as a child there was an old stable block outbuilding, the carriage house part was just big enough to be used as a car port for a small car, and the stable section's fittings had already been removed and it was just a large room with a door way, perfect for storing gardening equipment, so my Father ordered a door made for it. The guys arrived to fit the door, took one look and started to apologise because they 'must have cut the door too short', my Father then explained, No, it was fine, it had been measured to leave a space at the bottom so the cat could get in and out.

[Lilith]

Confession: I just carpeted the windowsill so the kittens didn't get cold paws whilst looking at birds.

Anyone else this daft?

What a good idea!

The scientist Isaac Newton cut a hole in his study door so that his cat could come and go. There was a kitten too, so he cut a smaller hole for Kitten ...

[Mollycat]

For anyone who thinks maybe they have gone a bit too far with cat DIY, here is some reassurance that you haven't, and for those who are thinking about doing something, here is some inspiration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okOVxfuSYPk

[Ruth B]

That is both incredible and beautiful. You can see a lot of work, money and love has gone into turning the house into a place for happy cats. Unfortunately my OH sees any shelf as somewhere to store his models, both finished and unstarted.

[booktigger]

Never thought of carpeting windowsills, mainly because while fostering, I had to think about hygiene and cleaning, but as I have windowsills that are wide enough to fit a pillow on, most have been used by cats over the years, at the moment we only have two with beds on, and most things around the house are done with the cats in mind

[exlibris]

Wow! I now feel positively normal - in fact I think I should step up my game!