A few months ago, I read or saw or heard something about how the ideal cat scratching post is tall enough to allow cats to get a full stretch while they’re scratching. Most of the posts you get at pet stores are way too short to meet that criteria… like this one.
This scratching post makes kitties sad.
It still works and the cats still use it (unless Oooo! Look! A couch!) but in the interest of (not) spoiling our cats, I decided that a “less than ideal” cat scratching post was, well… less than ideal. Therefore, I set about making one that more closely resembled the a scratching post fit for a frickin’ lion.
For the post itself, I took two 2x4s and screwed them together to make a solid and adequately sized post. I cut it to a length of 36″ and then wrapped it with 1/4″ sisal rope that I got at Harbor Freight for about $8.00 per 100-foot roll.
The hammer seems out of place
To get things started, I drilled a 1/4″ hole and stuck end of the rope into the hole, adding a small screw to smush it solidly into place. There are various ways to keep the rope in place (staples, hot glue, tacks, etc) but since I had some Titebond glue around, I just smeared that on the post and wrapped the sisal around that, working in about 5″ segments so the glue wouldn’t dry out before I got the sisal wrapped. That worked out really well and the wrapping ended up very solid.
At the top and bottom, I also added some tack-in cloth staples around the rope just to make sure it didn’t slip or pull loose.
From that point, it was just a matter of cutting a big, square base, drilling some holes, wrapping it in carpet, and screwing the post to the base. I’m giving very few details here because of two things. First, I didn’t take any pictures during this process and second, I’m a total failure at cutting carpet with anything remotely resembling precision. Fortunately, it looks fine from the top.
So the finished post is about 36″ tall and is on a base that’s about 20″ x 20″. It looks pretty awesome and I’m sure that it will get used eventually. To be more specific, I’m sure it will get used eventually the way it was intended to be used, not the way Houdini decided to use it.
So ungrateful.