Cats climbing tree

Jules Yap·
CatsPet Furniture
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WP_20140130_005

Height 2500mm. from floor to ceiling.
Framewood 72x72mm. corners rounded
3 Ikea FROSTA stools
Approximately 120 meters of hemp cord.
2 rattan baskets, I would have used Ikea GOSIG baskets but they were sold out.
A hand full of screws and staples

WP_20140130_003

Use screws to fasten stools to framewood and to fasten baskets to stools. Twin hemp cord around everything and fasten the cord with staples. Use something to fasten cats climbing tree to ceiling ant floor.

~ Sussi Oinonen

Jules Yap
Latest posts by Jules Yap (see all)

One Response

  1. The picture shows a square pole. Actually there are ways to have a round pole too! AND (if you want) you can even have the whole thing on a “no-budget” approach.

    If you aren’t too picky and you should easily find 70-90% of the materials you need around your house. Just because the concept is so easy to make: it’s a ground plate, a top plate and a pole in the middle to which you creatively attach plattforms.

    For example: There is cartboard packaging for paper rolls like photo wallpaper that is perfect for the center pole. They are perfectly round, thick enough to hold a small screw and will look just like you bought it in a shop! Also they are about 1.5 meters high each. Meaning that for a small stand even just one is enough.
    They are also very easy to work with and can be handled with a simple hand-saw. However: unless you are looking for a tiny 1-floor solution, you cannot rest the plattforms on just the cartboard alone – for stability reasons. But this is easily fixed as well. The cartboard is hollow so you just put a wodden or metal pole inside and let the weight rest on this pole instead of the cartboard, while the cartboard simply gives it that nice, perfectly round finish on the outside.

    For example: The easiest option for a stable “no-budget” pole is to take an old parasol-stand. A standard stone parasol stand is heavy enough to ensure all the stability you need and you can recycle the pole of your worn-out parasol. If you don’t have an old parasol for that you can use any other suitable wood or metal pole.

    To add a (wodden) plattform to a round middle pole you just need a round saw for your power drill – you can get that in any hardware store. In the middle of your plattform you saw out a hole for your pole. The hole should be in the middle of the plattform for stability reasons. You may then add plush and tough cloth on the plattform to make it nice and soft. Use a tacker to tighten the cloth. If you do this around the centering hole, it will be fully covered by the pole later and thus invisible. Do this BEFORE you put the pieces together – it’s easier that way.

    If you follow these instructions the task of putting things together becomes damn easy: A) put ground plate with pole B) put cartboard on pole C) put plattform on the pole with the cartboard D) put another cartboard on pole with plattform E) put another plattform F) put another cartboard….
    When you have reached the ceiling, saw off the excess cartboard and put on the final top piece. If your pole is higher than 2 meters you should always prefer to go all the way to the ceiling and have it anchored in the ceiling for stability reasons. Otherwise the top may swing left and right when your cats are playing on it.
    Finally: attach the hemp string around the cartboard pole. You can make the ends of the hemp string disappear by putting them inside the cartboard pole and glue them in place right there. There you go! An easy-to-make (almost) no-budget climbing tree.

    Now the catch is: the plattforms need to be centered around the pole, must not be too large and must not be offset. If your cats are a bit more on the “heavy side of life” or you simply don’t want centered plattforms and instead want your plattforms to be offset (like in the picture above) then you will need to a square wodden pole in the center for better stability!
    A square wodden center pole you will allow you to attach stronger angles that will give your “branches” that extra bit of stability needed to hold your plattforms.

    Assembly is similar, but you will definitely have to screw the ground and top plate into floor and ceiling, to counter the sideways forces of the branches.
    When attaching the branches, make sure that there are no two branches pointing the same way (you guessed it: for reasons of stability).

    If you need to cut a square hole with a saw, you need two things: A) a power drill with either a a small round saw or a large drill bit B) a jig saw. First: measure and mark where you want to cut out the hole for your square pole. Second: drill a hole for the jig saw using your power drill. And Third: use the jig saw to cut out the hole.

    You CAN attach offset branches on a round metal pole as well, but since you usually can’t drill into the pole you will need metal clamps and metal angles to fix your branches from bottom AND top. However! The stability of this option is limited and you will thus have to limit yourself to having the plattforms very close to the center pole.

    There you go! Happy crafting!

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