Caturday (Part 1: DIY cat playhouse)

WE HAVE A KITTEH! A teeny little fluffball by the name of Kira. She is the floofiest kitten you ever did see, and she's so lovely. She has so much energy, so I decided to make her a playground. At 6 weeks of age, she was already a ninja and we really wanted her to have a proper climbing set-up, but those kitty climbing posts are so darn expensive. Looking at what I had lying around the house, I figured I could at least construct some kind of structure for her to play on out of old cardboard boxes. I kind of just went for it without much planning, but I had a picture in my head of a fairy tale princess palace that she can run around in and peek out the windows.

It was fairly quick and pretty easy to do. I've laid out the process as a step-by-step guide, so you can make your own!

Step 1: Gather as many boxes as you can

It helps to get a variety of sizes, to make things interesting. You want to find enough boxes that are spacious enough for your cat to move freely in. Smaller boxes (eg. for kettles, irons, etc) are excellent as well - you'll see why in a bit.

I kept all the boxes from when we moved in, which were just taking up space. I convinced myself I would need them someday and didn't throw them away. True to my hoarder instincts, I now have a use for them!

Step 2: Arrange boxes for construction

Stack your boxes to find a good fit. Remember, every surface should be strong enough to support the weight of a frolicking kitty, so be careful if your cardboard is old or saggy. If it is, maybe cut cardboard from another box and use it to reinforce the saggy areas.

Try and visualise where all your "doors" and "windows" will go, especially the inside doors that make passages between boxes. You can position them in any fashion you prefer. I don't have a lot of space in my house so I chose to make it higher rather than wider, but if I did have more space I would love to have done a long system of tunnels!

This is where the smaller boxes are handy: if you have "rooftop access" or doorways planned for higher levels, make sure your kitty can reach them easily. You don't want him/her to make flying leaps to get fom one place to another, since this is just cardboard and the whole thing could topple or collapse after a particularly forceful jump. Use the little boxes to create storeys or steps within a big box. Removing one side of the small box will also make a nice little room within the larger room - perfect to place a small cushion to make a bedroom.

Here's where I placed my two small boxes within the larger boxes:

Also identify where you may need additional support. In my case, the long thin box was to be attached to the side of the large box to the left without any bottom support. I chose to use toilet paper tubes and positioned them underneath the weak point of the small box to hold it up more securely. You could use anything sturdy like an even smaller box, a stack of cut cardboard, plastic bottles, whatever you may have on hand, but choosing something with a bit of width like a toilet roll tube wil help distribute the weight better than something thin like dowel sticks, for example.

Step 3: Visualise the outcome

Plan the 'flow' of the boxes. Design a coherent pathway or system of pathways that your kitty can take through the boxes. Making a circular route will be more exciting for your cat as they can charge around in loops for hours. Try and make it as irregular as possible, but still fluid. If you have the space, designing a maze-like route could be fun as well.

This is what my pathway design looks like:

Red arrows: flow of movement

Green arrows: entrances/exits

Step 4: Joining the boxes

*You might want to do step 5 and 6 first if you do not have a sharp craft knife*

Once you have your boxes positioned and you're happy with it, you'll need to secure them in that shape. I used duct tape to join them together, as I was worried about the strength of my craft glue. If you have glue that is super effective, go ahead!

Join all the boxes along the edges that touch another box. Don't secure the front or side flaps/lids of the boxes - try and keep them open for now so that you can reach inside easily for the following steps. Any of these flaps on the inside of the boxes should be taped down, however, so that they're not jutting out and taking up space inside.

(I had to remove old packaging tape and courier stickers from my boxes - it will make the job so much easier if you do this now instead of later on).

(I only have this photo where the doors and windows are already cut out - I got a bit too

enthusiastic and forgot to take photos of this step before moving on.

Ignore the holes for now).

Step 5: Mark all your openings

OK, so you might want to do this before you join all your boxes together if you are worried about cutting through too many layers of cardboard. I have a very strong, sharp craft knife so I did my cutting after everything was in place. I found it easier this way because I only needed to mark one opening on one side after the boxes where joined together, instead of trying to match up markings when joining the boxes.

Draw on your boxes where you would like to make your windows. These will be cut last but having the outlines in place will help. Consider how much light you want to let in, how large your cat is or will grow to be, and what kind of shape you want (round windows are really cute when there's a kitty face poking through). Will the windows be just for decoration or do you want your cat to be able to jump through them? Is the structure going to be flush against a wall (and thus have no need for windows on the back side) or stand-alone?

Keep in mind the pathways you planned out earlier, and draw where you want all the doorways/openings to be. You might have to do some arm contortions to reach inside.

Here's a skeleton diagram of what mine looks like for reference:

blue = doorways

red = windows

Step 6: Cut

Using a craft knife, cut out your openings. Begin with the ones that are higher and further back - the cutting motions cause the boxes to move and strain quite a lot, so you want to start in the places that need the least support. This is also where you'll find out if you've joined the boxes together securely or not. If not, don't worry, more duct tape fixes everything.

Note: it may be easier to cut simple shapes like squares or circles for now. Even if you've planned some interesting arched windows or fancy curvy edges, try to get the basic underlaying shape out first. There's always time to fine-tune your shapes later.

Please always be careful with sharp cutting tools - I had to lock Kira in another room because she had already discovered how amazing cardboard was and wanted to help. I won't tell you the traumatic story of how she discovered the duct tape.

Remember those extra flaps that make the 'lids' of the boxes? If you've got any, you can either cut them off or, for additional support, fold them over the adjacent box and tape them down. If any of these flaps overlap an opening, make sure to cut through them as well. You can see where I did this with the bottom two boxes: the left box's flap is folded over the right box to secure that middle joint. The flaps that lay flat on the ground I kept on, to make a sort of patio which will get painted later.

Once all the holes are cut, you have the basic structure done! Now to decorate!

Step 7: Paper layers

Now, because I was using duct tape, it meant painting would be a nuisance, since the glossy texture of the tape would need a million coats of paint to cover the shine. And my structure was FULL of duct tape! So I decided to bypass this problem by plastering the whole thing with paper. I picked out some old paper that I didn't need, because who needs an exam pad of hot pink coloured paper? (Tip: white paper would make life easier since you don't have to worry about a white base coat). I used craft glue but cold glue or wood glue does the same job. I don't recommend using Pritt, but if you use enough of it who knows, it could work.

It's important to avoid air pockets and bulges in the paper, but it's such a waste to apply glue to the entire piece of paper. If you have the patience and enough glue, that's great, but here's what I did instead:

- place glue along edges of paper

- also add glue to any corners or edges of the box that the paper will fold over (this includes the edges of any holes you've cut)

- pinch a slight fold in the paper wherever it folds over an edge, to help it fit snugly against the edge

This will ensure that the paper lies flat against every surface, without wasting glue.

You don't have to cover every inch of cardboard with paper, only the areas that have duct tape. One of my boxes was quite a glossy cardboard so I covered that with paper as well.

It's easist to cover the holes with paper completely and then cut the paper away than to try align strips of paper around the edges of the holes. This is especially true if the holes are curved.

Now is also the time to fine-tune your holes if you want more detailed shapes.

Note: I left the inner edges of my holes unfinished, which means they are one or two layers of raw cardboard. If you're worried about paper cuts from them, or your cat chewing or shredding them, perhaps fold the paper in and around the edges of the holes. You could also use duct tape to line them.

Step 8: Pass out in a comical position