WHEN DESIGNERS ARE STUCK AT HOME
As a designer, being stuck at home all day has my non-stop craving for making spaces unique and functional at an all time high.
My Fiancé, John, and I have a full house; the two of us, plus our dog and two very adorable cats, in a one bedroom apartment. We love our animals and go to great lengths to make sure they are healthy and happy. Since I have been working from home, I noticed that our cats needed a little something extra to keep them occupied (and to keep them from stepping on my keyboard all day!). Since I typically find store bought cat trees to be overpriced and generally not very cute, I came to the conclusion that we would have to make one ourselves.
LET THE BUILDING BEGIN
I love the look of birch wood, so we picked these birch logs as a starting point and designed the rest in Archicad after we got them measured. Then the fun part began!
Once everything was set up and ready to build, it was time to throw on the safety goggles and start cutting.
After we got the base built, we set it up and measured the actual dimensions of the tree for the ‘shelves’. This was quite tricky since the birch logs are natural and not perfectly straight. Then we used cardboard cutouts as templates, and built each of the shelves, securing them to both the wall and tree trunks for extra stability.
Next, we tightly wrapped sections of the logs with a course rope, for our cats to use as a scratching post, and to help them climb between shelves.
Our dog, Copper, supervised this work to ensure we were staying on schedule and on budget.
FINAL PRODUCT
Once the rope was on, we let the cats have a test run and they took to it really quickly! Lastly, we touched up the paint, and added some recycled carpeting to the shelves and the interior of the base and secured that with adhesive velcro; that way we can remove and clean the carpet pads if needed.
Our cats, Bender and Leela, both love it! Playing on it has become part of their daily routine. My desk and keyboard are still not free of the cats, but we had a ton of fun making the tree, and our little project turned out pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself!
Thanks for reading!
Megan Stanley | Architectural Designer
08 OCTOBER 2020
