Two for One

My creative right brain kicked into cah-ra-zyyy mode. Which is totally worse than The Little Bads Gang tag-teaming attacks on my toes. Seriously…sometimes I wonder if the logical side of my brain even exists anymore.  Right brain was trying to address 2 problems…




Problem 1: I feel like the little bads need a some kind of cat condo/scratching post/climbing tree kinda thingy. But the ones sold in stores are really ugly and really overpriced. And since I build furniture…why not a cat tree? Problem: where to put it and what should it look like? So now I’m stuck on the design. Like crazy glue kinda stuck. Ughhhhhh!!!


Problem 2: The additions of The Little Bads required a second litter box (so now we have one on each floor of our house). Unfortunately, the location of this second box was dictated by Zoey. And that location was in the corner right next to our dining room table. In my mind…that’s the equivalent of hosting a dinner party in our bathroom…"why don’t you have a seat on our porcelain throne and pass the rolls please". So I came up with two options: either move the table or the box (genius....ehhhh????). I decided that I should try moving the box first.  After much debate, I found a corner in my office that will suffice. However, that’s still not quite acceptable. If I’m going to have a litter box next to my desk…it shouldn’t look like one. So my right brain launched “operation conceal the litter box.” I’m pretty confident I could build a most fabulous contraption to house/hide the litterbox. But let’s be realistic…I’m just trying to disguise a cat toilet! So I’m not interested in investing a lot of time/money/energy into something that hopefully we won’t even need in a few months. I pondered combining my two problems…build a cat tree that could also accommodate hiding the litter box. But that idea just rendered me completely frozen in indecisiveness. My solution: give up and take a nap. Maybe eating in the bathroom isn’t so bad after all…

Apparently, I was trying to decorate in my sleep because I woke up with this great makeover idea for a metal cart that I brought home from our local free-cycle spot. Perfect. In crazy right brain world it makes complete sense to start a completely new project that is completely unrelated to the cat tree/litter box issues that have been driving me crazy. Gotta love how right brain works…throw in an unrelated project to make me crazier!

However, working on this cart did involve breaking out ol’ miter bob so the thought of actually doing something made me happy. And as I was assembling supplies for the cart makeover, I passed a bench/table piece in our basement that I also picked up a few weeks earlier at the local free-cycle spot. Whoa…nelly! I think I just stumbled onto greatness here! If I do a little bit of dismantling and reassembling with a few modifications…I may have just solved the litter box issue. Maybe right brain isn’t so crazy after all!

So I started working on the cart which involved several coats of spray primer, oil rubbed bronze spray paint, and cutting 20 pieces of 1x3’s into 14 ½ inch sections. The stars were starting to align in my favor. The width of the cart was exactly the width of ten 1x3’s (for which I had plenty of scraps on hand.)

The measurements of the bench/table would accommodate the litter box once I made a few "tweeks".  So I set out taking it apart.  I cut the bottom shelf to make it shorter by 4 inches and reattached it closer to the ground.  I added some 1x2's to the arms on the top so the original bench seat would just sit on top.  That way it could just be lifted off, which would provide easy access to the litter box.  And a piece of particle board from the cart was a perfect fit for a piece missing on the top of the new litter box “table.” I just wrapped it with some leather fabric (that I already had in my stash) and secured it with duck tape.  It was meant to be!! 

A few hours later…after some spray paint, wood scraps, duck tape, and leather fabric…I emerged with a litter box table and a custom metal/wood cart. Of course I'm only about 90% complete at this time (just keeping pace with my completion batting average). I still need to sand/stain the wood but it's good enough for now.  And progress thus far made right brain go into hibernation for a few days. Halle-freakin-luja! Soooo shhhhhh…let’s not wake her up…I’m in need of some serious couch time!

Metal Cart Makeover

Table/Bench/Litter box Makeover