The Cat Post Post

In between the long and laborious kitchen cabinet project posts, I've taken to writing shorter, fun submissions. This one involves cats. Meet Pierre. He loves hanging out on top of the large Ikea Expedit bookshelf we've had for awhile:

Cuddling with his catnip-filled fashion 'body pillow'

In the past we just picked him up and put him up there any time it seemed like that was what he wanted, though it was hard to tell sometimes. So what better than a way for him to get up there all by himself? 

I've had this idea for awhile and finally got around to trying it. We originally put their traditional scratching post next to the bookshelf to get him in the habit of scratching in that area. Then I bought a thin piece of berber carpeting in a house-coordinated color from the "cut your own length" section at Home Depot. I attached the strip to the side and up over the top with nails. It took putting him on the carpet side a few times before he figured out how to get started himself, but soon he was climbing up the bookshelf incredibly quickly. He's a very happy guy up there:

Seriously. He rolls around up there all the time

Originally we were thinking this would be Pierre's space only. Our other cat, Murray, never showed any interest in being up high like Pierre had. Just for fun I put his claws on the carpet and showed him how to climb it one time. Much to our surprise, he did it all by himself right away. He even beat Pierre to doing it entirely independent of us. 

Unfortunately Murray can't get himself down, so he sits on the end when he wants off. Pierre has never had a problem jumping down using the couch:

About to make the leap

We are really lucky that our little dream house with the amazing yard happened to be on a quiet dead end street, because that means these guys are finally able to safely go outside and explore. They stick to our yard and the yards of the houses immediately adjacent to ours, and the exercise has been really good for losing a little weight. They haven't been going out as much now that it's colder and sometimes rainy, so this climbing wall gives them the opportunity for indoor exercise until spring.