I Built Cat WALKWAYS Around My House!

My lounge is boring and my cats are bored, so I bought a million pieces of climbing equipment to build the ultimate cat playground for them to explore. Well, mostly Henry. Bella's getting a little too old to be bothered by climbing. And it's not really Ralph's thing either. But Henry is chaos cat-on-ified. He spends the day stealing food, destroying things, and just generally getting up to mischief. And then spends the night stealing food, destroying things, and just generally getting up to mischief too. I'm hoping I can channel that crazy kitten energy into something that's actually designed for him. So I have this floor-to-ceiling scratching post in the dining room. And as Henry's currently demonstrating, he absolutely loves it. It's made up of these modular sections which twist into each other. And each platform has a tiny hole for the screw to go through. Which means, if I drill a tiny hole into a plank of wood, I can get loads of these and build walkways between them. Look at him, he's a madman. So whilst the cats eagerly waited outside, I got to work. The first step was to move the record player and clean behind it, which was nowhere near as hairy as I'd expected. I could then build a cat tree, which is going to go in that corner. It looks pretty complicated, and there are a lot of parts, including what looks like an xylophone of uprights. But Henry's going to be supervising, and I feel like I've kind of been training for this with how much LEGO I've built the last few years. So with the help of Henry, I got started. And it took so long, it literally got dark outside. Although it didn't end up being all that complicated after all. The last step then is to attach this piece, simply by spinning it loads. Oh, that's pretty cool. By the morning, Henry had already made himself at home. And after breakfast, the cats were keen for me to hurry up and get on with the rest of it. Here's that shot from the intro again. So this is just four floor-to-ceiling scratching posts, but I've got eight, so double this. I've also got all of these things, and of course the cat tree, which Henry has already taken to. I built the stairs and wall-mounted accessories, assembled the bases, and by then everything else had arrived. Okay, random tangent, I'm brushing Ralph, and you're not going to believe how much hair I'm getting off. That's my hand for scale. Ralph is one very hairy lad. Seriously, it's more hair than I've got left on my head, and it was very satisfying to hoover up. Alright, everything's finally arrived. We've got the wood, the carpet that's going to go on top of the wood, all eight scratching posts are here, and the fixtures to tie everything together and attach it to the wall. I've had to tidy up, and now I can properly see everything I've got to work with. The goal is to create a complete raised circuit around the room, and get Henry to do an entire lap without touching the floor. Basically, the floor is made of lava, but for cats. So using the cat tree as a starting point, I assembled two half-height towers, one by the cat tree, and one in the corner behind the sofa. I drilled holes in each end of a plank of wood, and connected the two together. It's a bit wobbly, and I want to leave these two posts the height they are. They're not going to extend all the way to the ceiling for support, which means I'm going to have to attach it to the wall. Before that, I lined the surface with this special cat scratching carpet, then drilled holes for the brackets, and screwed everything in place. Bella wasn't impressed with all the noise and commotion. That's all done and nice and sturdy, which means we're onto this wall, where the wall-mounted stuff's going to go. But I'm going to skip that for now, because we've got to somehow get above the door. So I'm going to build a floor-ceiling tower either side of the door, attach that plank, and then we can move onto this stuff. And it's here I encountered the first real problem. The plank of wood can only be attached at increments the size of each individual post. Which either means it blocks the door, or it'd be so tall the cats wouldn't have enough room to actually use it. So my first thought was to see if I could get the cap off, because then I could cut the post down, reattach it, and have shorter posts. But it would not come off, no matter how hard I tried. So I cut one open to have a look, and there's a good reason. It's got a million staples, that is complete overkill. Which means shortening them is not an option. I'm going to have to attach a plank of wood up there, completely independent of the posts. Again I drilled holes, screwed in the brackets, and attached the wood. And having a shelf above the door was unexpectedly really cool. I then took down these record frames. Don't worry, I'll put them back up later, to allow for the next piece of wood. It's up, and it's really starting to look good now. I love how this shelf is a step down from that one. It's now got to go up again over the door frame, and then continue over this way. You know the drill. That shelf's now up, and I've got sawdust all over my elephant trinkets. Next was a platform spanning the bay window. And this was freestanding, rather than attached to a wall. There we go, that is all the scratching posts and bridges in place. I've only actually used seven, so I've got one spare. What's left now then is to bridge the gaps with the wall-mounted accessories. So it needs to somehow go from here all the way up to there. All of that's fine, but there needs to be something here connecting those two bridges, sorry. And I think they could jump that, but it would be nice to have something there as well. So any normal-heighted person would be constantly banging their head on this bridge. But luckily I'm short enough that it doesn't matter. And lastly it was time for the wall-mounted stuff. So we're just figuring out where to put this one on the wall. But Dan's just holding it in place, it's not properly attached and Henry's already sitting on it. I drilled the holes and attached everything in place, but it didn't go to plan. This shelf is not very sturdy at all. I don't know if you can see the wall plugs coming out the wall. The second Henry jumps on that, that's gonna go. So I need to take that down and replace it with something else. It was really frustrating. Because I now have six unnecessary holes and they're already very crumbly. Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring. Just show the finished thing already. We're done. Everything is now up and finished. So from the scratching post you've got this bridge. You've got a few wall-mounted accessories including some steps. Goes up above the door, above the TV, above this door. Then onto these wall-mounted accessories, over this bridge. A final wall-mounted shelf before it's back to the cat tree. Henry is gonna love this. Just a quick reminder that there's still time left to get the Henry plushie. Who's finally joining Ralph and Bella to complete the set. Plus there's an adorable kitten Bella keychain. Perfect for hanging from bags. The first of five kitten keychains coming soon. Henry comes with his best friend Sir Sockington. And they're available worldwide only for the next week or two from makeship.com. So don't miss out. I'm gonna put Henry's favourite treats all over the walkways. So hopefully it will convince him to do a complete lap. And I must have rustled the bag quite loudly. Because Ralph heard and claimed the treats above the sofa. That was the extent of his explorations however. Good boy aren't you Ralph. Good boy. I didn't expect you to go on that at all. But Henry wasn't far behind. There he goes. He's found the first one. He ungracefully climbed his way up further. Before taking a seat and purring his head off. That is a very loud purr. Hello. Good boy aren't you. And then he started biting the shelf. This cat. But soon he clambered up to find his next reward. I tried to show him where to go next. But Henry had other ideas. Instead venturing anti-clockwise and above the door. Then it was carefully down the steps to claim the next pair of treats. Honestly it felt so rewarding seeing one of the cats actually use and actually enjoy something I'd put so much work into. And luckily I'd remembered to replace the treats above the sofa. Which he wasted no time in hoovering up. It's like a video game where you've got to go around and find the collectibles. Except for Henry it's cat treats. I must have jinxed it. Oh he's on the floor. That's lava bud. You were supposed to know that. Let's just pretend this video game has multiple lives. Because he was quickly back up and in search of more snacks. Go on Henry. He hopped to the wall mounted shelf. Then casually made his way to the next platform. Before climbing up again so quickly I barely had time to film it. Straight on to the next one. From here he already seemed to know the way. Probably from when Dan was holding it up earlier. Oh he skipped that one. It's right by his legs. There we go. All he's got to do is step onto this plank. And then with a little bit of cheating he's done a complete lap. And there he goes. Well two paws. Oh he's found another one. And with his back paws following suit. Henry had finally completed an almost complete circuit. Like I said it was lovely to see the cats enjoying something I'd built for them. I can't believe he's actually sleeping in it. And although Bella wasn't interested. Technically she was still using something I'd made. So I'll take it. And besides who can blame her. It was a gorgeous day to be outside enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. Hello. How you doing Bella?