Cat Perch project #1-making one from scratch - discussion and plans

Hi Everyone,

If you're a cat lover like me, then you probably have a cat perch in your home. They are useful pieces of furniture but they can be rather pricey. And the ones that are upolstered with carpet eventually get dirty and full of cat fur.

Discussion
I have two lovely young friends who are going to get married later this year and who are also cat lovers. They own two Bengal cats or perhaps the cats own them. Anyway, they need a cat perch for these guys and it's SWW to the rescue! Time to make a perch.

Plans
I am going to use the cat tree plans from Cat Tree Plans. I've used their plans before. Their plans produce very sturdy, usable cat perches that are very easy to make. The plans require a minimum of tools, use construction grade lumber and plywood,  and the plans are well illustrated and easy to understand.

This cat tree will not be upolstered with carpeting, instead I'm going to stain it with outdoor deck stain. This should make keeping it clean much easier and the stain will complement my friends home decor. I am going to make them plan #7 and you can see this by clicking here.

As the plans are copyrighted I'm not going to show all the details or display the cut list or other measurements. I'll just show several photographs and you should get a general idea as to what I'm doing with this.

Here we go:

It was cold the day I began the project so I brought the plywood parts inside and began marking them for cutting. And of course every job has to have a foreman and you can see mine in the photo:

Unfortunately the foreman doesn't clean up:

Here is a little sign post for the condo part of the house. My friends are artists and they can use this piece to paint the cat's names on:

And here are the cut out parts. you can see this is just 2x4s and plywood:

My friends have selected a deep brown stain for the perch and you can see that color here at Behr color coatings. They selected coffee SC-103.

I've sanded all the parts and tomorrow I'm going to begin staining them. Once I'm done with that I'll partially assemble the pieces and then do the final assembly at my friend's place. So stay tuned for the assembly and finish photos.

VW