It's no secret I like to spoil my cat. A while ago I made him a cat tree to give him a space to get away from our (at the time) new puppy. Well now that puppy is a decently big dog and he can reach Gremlin's little cat tree sanctuary, and while Grem normally doesn't mind too much(Hobbes is like a annoying little brother) I still wanted to give him his own space to get away when he wants to. I also wanted to put Grem's food and water bowl up a little higher because Hobbes love that stuff and can still get to it when it's on my dresser. So I made one shelf with recessed food and water bowls and two more simple carpeted shelves. A quick video summary will be below!
Supplies. And how to cut your wood.
I did miter joints, so I cut the wood at an angle for the corners.
Figure out the placement for your food and water bowls on one of the shelves. Measure the size of the lip of the bowl (mine was 1/4 inch) and use that measurement to draw out another, smaller circle in the middle. You want to cut the wood out on that circle so the body of the bowl fits, but the lip doesn't, so the bowl rests nicely inside.
Cut the circle out.
Time to assemble! Use wood glue to stick the wood together and use the stapler to tack the wood in place with brads or finishing nails. You're going to attach the 32inch long piece to the 32inch side of the large piece of wood and then a 10inch length of wood on each side. Leave one side bare since it will be resting against the wall.
Finish the wood according to instructions. I used a dark stain.
Cut a piece of carpet out that's 32in by 10in. This is leftover remnant carpet I got for the cat tree. I still have so much left over...
Attach the carpet. I put down some wood glue first before laying the carpet down. I honestly don't know if that even did anything because I followed up with about a million staples, but it made me feel better so I did it. So after you lay the carpet down use your stapler to staple the carpet down. I made sure to use a lot because I figured Gremlin was going to use these things as horizontal scratching posts and I didn't want him to be able to rip the carpet off.
Here are the finished shelves! You can see the recessed bowls. I'm so happy with how they turned out!
Now hang up on your designated wall! I really wish we had splurged on nicer looking brackets, but oh well. They're up already so I just gotta deal with it. I can always change them later!
And here he is enjoying his new cat shelves!
I'm so happy these turned out pretty much exactly like how I pictured them in my head (beside the ugly brackets).
I hope you all enjoy, and I hope my instructions were clear enough! I didn't realize how hard it would be to explain wood working stuff.,. hah!