No need to get catty!

Here I am, planning all the fun stuff for us humans, sinks and blinds and patio furniture, etc. and not one post about the cat. Well Muji reminded me yesterday that since we had taken down her cat-shelves at the old apartment, she really doesn't have a good view of all the birds outside and no place to sun! (isn't she just too cute?)

So yesterday evening I began our search anew for a good cat-tree or other furniture ideas to give Muji a nice perch from which to watch the world go round.  There's so much cat furniture out there, but the majority of it is so, for lack of a better word, ugly.

Enter Moderncat.net.

This blog/all-things-cat website is fantastic.  They manage to find cat furniture and other products that aren't carpet-covered monstrosities and actually manage to increase the aesthetics of your house.  And if you can't shell out the cash (some of these pieces are quite pricey), they have a whole DIY section on how to catify your house.  Fantastic!

Some of our favorite pieces so far we've found through Moderncat:

1. Whiskerstudio.com's "Elevation" Modular Cat tree (left) - This is kind of DIY. You can buy the Stolmen Pole and clamps from Ikea and simply buy the shelves from Whiskerstudio.  The pole can go up to 12 feet tall or you can attach to to the walls via the shelves themselves if your ceiling is higher.  What an awesome idea.  A modified version of this was recently used on the Animal Planet show My Cat from Hell.

2. The Sebastian Modern Cat Tree (right) - This one is also quite elegant, and you could use parts of it as a bookshelf as well as a cat-tree (better pics on the site).  But at $268, still a bit much.

3. Royal Woods Cat Scratchers (below) - Now this is the one I really want.  It's made from Liana wood (a rather ambiguous term referring to woody vines).  The wood is absolutely gorgeous (unclear if they did any finishing) and would almost be a work of art on its own!  The only problem is that they are based in the Netherlands and the nicer models are in the 400-500 euro range! But there's free shipping if you live in the Netherlands...shucks.  I tried to find out what type of wood they used in particular and was searching for any companies that might sell Liana wood here, but no luck.  Wouldn't this be a fun home project!

Oh well.  Muji might have to wait for some of these....

Addendum -
Camila just referred me to an Etsy listing by Franklin Cat Furniture.  It's quite similar to the WhiskerStudio Elevation tower above, but they have nice bright carpeting on the steps as well as some other neat cat-ification ideas.