Homemade Cat Napper

A few months ago I sold my loveseat on Craigslist because I had ordered my new sofa and knew that I wanted an accent chair or two instead of a matching loveseat.  My cats were depressed because their fave spot for napping was on the back of that loveseat that sat right in front of the window.  (Ok, so maybe I imagined them being depressed when they actually just found other spots to nap.)  You can see how much Stapler loves to look out the window in this picture. It's blurry, but she is sitting on top of the pillow with her head laying on the wood frame. Not very comfy. I also had to put a blanket on the chair since they spent alot of time laying here before they got their new perch.

So I had been on the lookout for a cat tree or some sort of napper to put in front of the window to give them a comfy place to rest again and get them out of my chair.

I don't know if you've ever shopped for cat tree, but let me just tell you, they are EXPENSIVE!  Even for something about 4' tall, they start around $80.  I found these little guys on Petco.com and thought that something like that would be perfect because I didn't want them to be a huge eyesore or obstruction in my living room. But, I wasn't about to pay $150 for two of them! 

Source

So I got to thinking and looking around my house for inspiration to build something similar and came across these end tables that I bought during college for about $50 for the pair. 

I was planning on taking them to Goodwill, but just hadn't gotten around to it. At first, I thought about taking the tops off the tables and building a hammock of sorts in each using netting, batting and fabric. After thinking a little harder about that, I realized that may not hold up to the weight of Precious (bless her heart).  So I decided to leave the tops on and just add lots of padding to make it a softer bed for them.  I had some left over spray paint and fabric from my cane chair project, so I used those to transform the Goodwill bound end tables into something functional that the kitty girls love! 

 After adding carpet samples for scratching and a hanging mouse toy, I have been able to convince them out of my chair and onto their new napper (for the most part). 

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