Trees and Hotels

I'm seriously considering either purchasing or building a cat tree/hotel for Duncan. Any suggestions on height and materials? Also, of those of you who have these contraptions, do your cat/cats actually use them?

Thanks for you input!
Jim

I do not have one of those trees, but I would say the higher the better. More for them to play on. I have a few scratching posts and they are all have carpet and thick rope on the outside. My cats really love that rope, they can dig their claws in. I wanted to get some of those trees too, but they cost way to much in the store. If you can build one, that would save you a lot of money.

Luckily, my husband is very handy (and a spendthrift - he couldn't bear to think of spending hundreds of dollars on a cat tree).

So he made almost all our trees.

Yes, our cats use them all and love them.

Cats think in terms of vertical space as well as horizontal when they consider their territory.

Most cats have a real need to climb, and it's comforting to them to get up high if they feel threatened or unsure.

The higher the better, just make sure they're stable enough so that they don't fall over.

My ex- made our cats thier tree. They love it. What we did was use pieces of pressed wood and covered them with carpet(make sure to use carpet glue) This way thier are no staples, nails ect. for the cats to catch thier claws on. Then we used the rolles that carpet and/or posters are rolled on to make the Vertical. I tried to scan a drawn picture, not a great artist but you can get the idea.Of course when we split I got the cats, he got the tree, so I have no real pictures of it. The tree that we made is about 5-6 feet tall. We covered the entire thing with carpet and then added some of the tuff rope to some parts, you can tell better from the drawing... at least I hope you can....

Our cats love their cat posts. Early on we just took an old wooden ladder and covered it with carpet. Mounted the ladder on a sturdy wooden base and leaned it at an angle against a small counter in the cat room and secured it in place. But we have several commercial condos, the one the cats favor most is made by Cozy Cat Condo, who unfortunately is closing up shop in a few days. The owner is going to architecture school. If you are close to the woods, or the beach driftwood and old tree limbs are always a treat for kitties. Bring the piece home, wash it well and then let it air dry.

I would like to build some sort of platform to go around the living room walls. I know Amber really loves to be up high. It is almost an every day occurrence where she jumps from the floor onto our shoulders to be carried around. Her favorite place to sleep is on top of a cabinet that is in the bathroom. She jumps on the sink, then the top of the shower doors and from there she takes a long jump to this cabinet. But, she is still growing and there isn't much more room for her. Those posts you find in the store are just way too much. Not that our cats are not worth it, but I know there is a better way to save a lot of money.

Our cats absolutely love their two cat trees, we also bought a little 1 condo one with post, you had to put it together yourself. DO NOT buy these, I put it together and no matter how much you tighten it, it will not hold still, it wobbles everywhere so the cats don't use it. The thing I look for most is stability, we have two large dogs that don't watch where they are going so we don't want them knocking the trees over!

I have 2 cat pieces of furniture and they love them and use them all the time. I have mine in front of windows. They have different slots, scoop out places and platforms to lounge on. If you can make one that'd be great and your cat will love it.