Good morning everyone and welcome to something new for our Thursday reading! Each Thursday for the next little while I will be sharing some simple DIY projects. Some may not apply to you or what you like to do, but I will try to have a few different ideas along the way, so please join me each Thursday for a new and simple project to enjoy.
Today is one for us people who have cats in our lives. Muffin thought this was a purrfect project to begin our new series. And she helped all the way through this project too, making sure I did things just right. This is for making, or in this instance, recovering, a scratching post for your favorite feline.
Muffin's scratching post was looking rather bad, as you can see in the pic above, and was in desperate need of new carpet, plus a new top on it. Muffin had outgrown that small top it had and she does like to sleep on her scratching post.
So I stripped the old carpet off and took the old top off the pole, as shown above. The pole itself is a 2x4 (that is what they are called here), really it is a piece of wood about 1 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches (3.75cm by 8.75cm) and is 3 feet (90cm) long. The bottom is 16 inches (40cm) square and is 1 1/2 inches (3.75cm) thick. For Muffin the base needed to be heavy enough so the post would not fall over when she ran and jumped onto it. It will sometimes rock a lot, but has never fallen over.
I turned the carpet over so I could mark the bottom of it and cut it easily with a sharp knife. The piece for the bottom needed to have a hole cut in the center for the pole.
Muffin helped me with that, so my marking did not come out too well. But it worked and fit nicely on the base.
I then used large staples to attach the carpet to the base. I also used staples for the rest of the project. These staples are large and strong so they will hold the carpet in place quite nicely. I forgot to take a pic of the staples used, but any large staples from a hardware store would work.
I made the top larger, 11 inches (27.5cm) by 14 inches (35cm), a perfect size for Muffin. I made one end rounded, as shown above, to make it easier for Muffin to climb onto the top. She likes to climb up the pole, then pulls herself onto the top to look out the window or have a nap.
You can see she approves of the finished project in the above pic. It looks so much better than the first photo and Muffin is enjoying it very much. It needs to be recovered about every 6 to 8 months, but that could vary depending on your cat.
It is definitely a worthwhile project, cats do love to scratch and something like this saves on the furniture. It was simple training her to use the post and she has never scratched the furniture since I made this for her. Plus, it is far more solid than the ones sold in stores around here.
Sorry I did not have more pics for actually making the post itself, but it was made a few years ago, before I started blogging. I did not even have a camera at the time. I think next week we will try reclaiming an old picture frame for display purposes. Have a great day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2023 Steve McLeod.
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