I decided to take a break from writing about gardening and crafty projects today to talk about cats.

I am a cat lady. And I’m the first person to admit it. I’m not a crazy bag lady type of cat lady, but I do love being surrounded by cats. My husband and I live with three cats and we often joke that I’d have more if I could (I’ve been banned from visiting animal shelters as everyone knows I would just bring more cats home given the chance).

Unfortunately, living with cats also means having to deal with cat litter and cat hair and scratched up furniture. One of our cats loves to scratch the couch and has destroyed a few sofa covers in her life with us. Another cat likes to scratch pretty much anything and has done some serious damage to a few softer wood pieces of furniture. The third cat is an angel and doesn’t scratch anything but his scratchers.

About once a year I go ahead and patch the furniture that the rotten cat has decided to use as a scratching pad. But of course, the cat immediately starts scratching it again and it’s a whole destructive cycle. We can’t have nice things.

I’d always said I was never going to get an ugly carpet covered cat condo. They are an eyesore and are expensive and I really hate them. And if you can find something that isn’t terrible, it is ultra modern and even more unreasonably expensive than the ugly ones. But I was tired of the furniture being destroyed and it was clear that the cat needed something to scratch – it is his instincts and I can’t get pissed at him for it. The thing that really threw me over the edge though was a couple of weeks ago when something fell behind the shelf (otherwise known as the cat scratcher) and I went to move it a bit to pull out fallen item, and heard a loud cracking noise. The shelf has been so badly scratched that the structural integrity is compromised. Not good. Stop moving shelf.

So we broke down and bought some cat furniture. I came across this Armarkat cat condo on Amazon and it wasn’t completely terrible. Pretty basic and the reviews were good. And it was fairly inexpensive, as far as cat condos go (just over $100, ouch). And I liked that it had a little private loft for a cat to sleep in – perfect for putting by the patio door so the cats can watch birds and sleep in the sun during the day.

Also note the oh-so-soft wall weaving that I wrote about in this post.

The verdict is still out on whether or not they actually like the thing, I haven’t seen much interaction with it. In fact, the boy cats seemed more interested in the box it came in (typical cats).

In addition to the condo, we also bought a new vertical cardboard scratcher. All of the cats enjoy scratching cardboard so I knew they would use it. It seems silly to buy cardboard, but the thought of cutting and gluing pieces of cardboard together did not strike me as a good time. They’ve already used the cardboard scratcher quite a bit in the few days that it has been home so I know my money wasn’t wasted on it.

And of course, I repaired the furniture again. Hopefully for the last time, but I won’t get my hopes up.

I’m not compensated for or affiliated with any of the products or companies mentioned in this post.