How to Make a Cat Castle and Scratching Post

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Lee Meredith, contributor

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Banzo the kitten claws herself up onto the top of her post.

Lee Meredith

Garbanzo brings her toys up onto her castle to wrestle with.

Lee Meredith

Carpet pieces with the same pattern but in different colors look great together!

Lee Meredith

Banzo the kitten claws herself up onto the top of her post.

Photo: Lee Meredith

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I love making things from what would normally be trashed, and when I found piles of old carpet samples for 50 cents each I knew I could turn them into something fabulous for my kitty! I am lucky enough to live near SCRAP, which stands for "school and community reuse action project" where people donate stuff instead of trashing it—stuff like these carpet samples and thick cardboard tubes for artists and crafters like me to find new uses for! If you don't have a store like this near you, I'm sure there's somewhere where you can find carpet scraps if you look hard enough, and your cat will thank you for your effort!

I built this kitty castle and scratching post a few months ago, so I'm going to show you how I made them by partially deconstructing them, which is why the step-by-step pictures don't all look how they would when you're constructing them.  The projects are very flexible anyway, and your materials will probably be different from mine, so it shouldn't matter.

To make the kitty castle, you'll need:

• Two or more large, thick cardboard boxes
• Several pieces of carpet (or enough total to cover most surfaces of the boxes)
• Scissors that can cut through the carpet
• Box cutter or craft knife
• Hot-glue gun

For the boxes, I used a printer box, which is good because it's extra-thick cardboard since printers are heavy, and I re-recycled the box from my Halloween costume, which was huge and thick. You need to make sure the boxes can withstand your cat climbing on them, sitting on them a lot, etc.

Make sure your holes don't jeopardize the sturdiness of the boxes.

First, cut several holes in both boxes, big enough for your cat to fit through. I cut holes on three sides of the large box and on three sides plus the top of the smaller box. Cut them so that one hole on one box lines up with one hole on the other box when you put them side by side. This way, when the castle is put together, your cat can go from one room to the other.

Use more than two boxes if you want, so your castle will have more rooms!

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Comments (4)

writerinfact writes: I have 2 cats, and I really, really DON'T like the idea of teaching them that scratching carpet is an OK thing! I started out by buying a sisal rope-wrapped "post" and discovered that the destroyed version can be re-wrapped (yes, you have to actually buy the stuff from the hardware store instead of scavenging it, but it's worth it!), and is actually a feline-preferred scratching surface. It gets wrapped around those heavy-duty cardboard tubes and hot-glued in place at the ends. Quarter-inch diameter is easiest to figure out how much you need to cover the tube, especially if the circumference is a nice even number, like 4 inches. Or, in my case, it got wrapped around the actual log, complete with original bark, to help the cats make the transition to a more natural scratching post. And yes, I have a 4-1/2 foot tall chunk of 12-inch diameter log standing in my living room!

On the other hand, some cats definitely prefer scratching corrugated cardboard, as I discovered when I put the litter boxes inside slightly taller cardboard boxes to contain the "shake!" Corrugated is usually a highly scavenge-able material, especially from supermarkets.
Posted: 3:05 am on June 26th

matiola writes: Thanks to Your idea my cat won't be scratching armchairs!(-:
Posted: 6:31 pm on February 13th

Pattiphoo writes: love it U have 5 cats and they are always clawing my furniture. I already have the tubes and carpet. Can's wait to make one. Hopefully they will claw at it. Thank you
Posted: 10:03 am on February 28th

vicky_north writes: I should make one of these for Bear. He likes to sit on top of everything and his scratching tree is getting pretty old.
Posted: 6:13 pm on February 14th

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