Building with Speakers -- the Cat House

[planet10]

Most people build speakers... this project involved using speaker boxes as the construction material. One of my vocations leaves me with lots of speaker carcasses. I've built shelves, walls of shelves, benches, bedside tabes reusing as many boxes as possible, saving them from the fire (some are only worth burning thou).

This project as more interesting. We wanted to get the cat feeding area off the front deck & out of the kitchen. Food needed to be protected from the dog (even thou she thinks she is a cat) and from the rain & sun. It also needed to be suitable for us to access & a fun place for the cats.

Enter the idea of "the cathouse". Starting with a basic idea the actual implementation was driven by the shapes of the speaker boxes at hand. After a bit of in the weather testing, almost all the MDF/particle board boxes are now on the burning pile, leaving me with a nice selection of plywood boxes.

I am quite happy with the result -- and the cats are slowly taking to it. Still needs a bit of detailing and a coat of paint.

dave

 

[planet10]

.

 

[tomtt]

any cat i've ever had(or been had by) would be all over this sort of thing

came home one time and 'my' cat was sitting on the roof of the house next

door

http://www.petfinder.org

he'd even go to the next block over to a bowling ally that had a bar,

owner let him stay till closing time night after night

 

[planet10]

A picture with an actual kat -- this one is Hannibal.


dave

 

[roddyama]

Very innovative system Dave. How does it sound?

 

[Cal Weldon]

It probably sounds open and airy.

 

[planet10]

Very innovative system Dave. How does it sound?

Depends on which kat & how hard you step on their tail

dave

 

[leadbelly]

Have enough and it would be an awesome game of Giant-scale Jenga....

 

[tomtt]

Hannibal. allthough looking none too cheerful does have nice hair


karetakers of kats know all too well the meaning of the words:

catastrophe,

cataclysmic,

and

catastrophic.

 

[chris ma]

Dave,

I think it is more suitable for pigeons. Let the alpha male pick his hole then the order will follow

 

[Variac]

I have designed various IMHO clever toys and houses for cats, and the only ones they like are the ones that look like something you've seen in a store. They just ignore my best efforts- they love the carpeted climbing structure like storebought I made, but I added a swinging rope for them to attack- they ignore that part.

When Iwas about 8 , our siamese cat used to sit on a shelf in the narrow pantry and reach out and swat the string hanging down from the lightbulb in the ceiling. One day we heard a terrible ruckus, and ran in to discover her hanging from the string by her tail. It was wrapped around many times ending in a half hitch. Best we could figure out, it had swung over and wrapped around her tail before she jumped off the shelf.

She and her tail were fine.....

 

[planet10]

look like something you've seen in a store. They just ignore my best efforts- they love the carpeted climbing structure

We picked one of those up at a garage sale... 3 of the cats keep it coated in cat hair... they occasionally play with the hanging rattly balls.

The cathouse will be fully carpeted & foam -- they love foam -- after it gets a coat of paint. It is going to live outside so needs a coat of weather protectant.

 

[Cal Weldon]

to discover her hanging from the string by her tail.

And no camera handy I suppose?

 

[pinkmouse]

-- they love foam --

I had a cat once that loved destroying any piece of polystyrene packaging foam she could get her paws on. However, the same cat loved instant coffee granules straight from the jar, so she did get a bit hyper every now and again...

 

[planet10]

Transplanted a tree into it today... and woke up to find that 2 of the cats had overnighted on the foam.

dave