My husband. God love him….

You see.. he’s a very minimalistic person. He’s a “no junk lying around the house, pick up your shoes, stop stacking mail, put it away and behind closed doors so I don’t have to look at it and it doesn’t collect dust” kinda guy (and then he bitches that our house doesn’t look like a model home with art and fake plants and everything.. and I’m all like “this is bull shit… if our mantel looked like that you’d tell me it was all cluttered and to clean it off” and he’s all “pshhhhhahhhhh” because he knows I’m right).

Anyway… where was I? Oh yeah…

Kitty Condos! (Nice transition right??)

We got our first cat, Sophie, by accident in October 2005. She just wandered up from the woods behind our house and began to socialize with the Engineer while he was mowing the yard. He, being born and bread a cat person, fell head over heels. Me? I wanted a dog (mostly because I had cats growing up and I have NEVER had a dog). Having a soft spot for animals, I wasn’t going to leave her to be eaten by some wild animal, so I told the Engineer that if she was around the following day, we’d keep her in the garage until her owners were found. Well 30 “Found Cat” flyer’s and 3 years later, we still have her. We named her Sophie because at the time we were addicted to the HBO show Carnival and her eyes got all black and crazy just like the shows Sophie character. It didn’t take long to realize she was a “man”-loving cat. She loves the guys, and while she tolerates me, I am NOT her favorite person. After a year of her snotty behavior, I decided to teach her that she wasn’t the only cat in the world and that it was time for a sibling. I was getting my own damn cat (this really could be where it all went wrong. I should have just gotten a dog).

Sophia Lousie Cattington

She couldn't decide what color to be.. so she chose them all!

Enter Buster. I picked him up in September 2006 at one of the animal shelters in Knoxville. Well.. correction: He picked me out. I went in wanting an orange kitten (neither the Engineer or I had ever had an orange kitty) and several had been listed on the shelters website. As I looked at the website lethargic kittens in search of that perfect orange one, I felt a tug at my pant leg. There.. attached to my shin, were the cutest orange paws that you’ve ever seen. I squatted to see what was inside and was meet with a very loud, assertive (another sign this was going to be a wild ride) mew from the smallest marble orange tabby kitten I have ever seen. I was sold. I called the Engineer and demanded that he drive over to see this kitten. I wasn’t letting him out of my sight until he got there. While at first the Engineer wasn’t so sure… Buster climbed his pant leg, then his sweater, and then headbutted him. The Engineer took one look at me, and at this tiny 2.2lb kitten, and sighed. We took him home two days later. We named him Phil after our beloved Volunteer Football coach, but it became painfully clear he was NOT a Phil. He was a Buster. And he’s always in EVERYTHING.

Phillip Buster T. Catsworth

Ahhh...

When the Engineer and I consolidated our households back in October 2004 (yes… we lived in sin for a LONG time before we got married… bla bla bla.. get over it) we had two sets of living room furniture, but only one living room. Being the doting, ever loving, girlfriend I was at the time I was tricked graciously sold my living room furniture. That meant we were stuck with blessed to keep the 1970’s orange shag couch that has been in DH’s family since.. well.. the 1970’s.

After 38 years (and likely a dozen moves) the couch has lived with numerous animals (cats and dogs). And in those 38ish years, the couch has put up a good fight against said animals. That was.. until it meet our cats.

So when I blogged recently of getting new living room furniture and the purchase of a new couch.. it wasn’t because we felt like being frivolous during these economic times. It was because we NEEDED a new couch… badly. Our cats have literally torn the stuffing out of this couch. It’s quite embarrassing. They’ve torn the back, the stuffing and piping is sticking out. At any given time there are couch bunnies that float across our living room floor. You don’t sit on the couch because you’ll have tufts of couch attached to you when you get up. OMFG… You can see the FRAMING.. that’s how bad it is.

It’s not like we encourage this behaviour. We yell, we throw things (soft things) at them, we chase/scare them while in the act, we squirt them with water. We’ve tried it all (beside declawing..which I don’t believe in, SoftPaws..which I can’t seem to find, and/or that tape crap you put on the corners… which.. knowing my cats.. won’t do shit) but they still claw. Since I didn’t want this behavior to continue and I didn’t want to kill our cats or have them declawed.. I’ve begged (BEGGED PEOPLE…BEGGED!!!) the Engineer (for the last three years) to let me buy a Kitty Condo (see.. I’m getting to it).

This was what I had in mind

From here

It’s small… no more than 2 feet tall, and adorable. But my Husband huffed and puffed (and whined.. OMG did he whine) and said it was WAY TO BIG. And he said that knowing our cats, they wouldn’t stop clawing the sofa, but would instead claw BOTH pieces. So.. for the last 3 years, we’ve been kitty condo-less.

However.. after the incident with the little puncture marks in the new chairs and purchasing a new couch… well.. he started rethinking. My mother-in-law swears that her cats stopped clawing her furniture when she got them a condo, and really.. what did we have to lose (A new fucking sofa.. that’s what!!!).

So.. I’m all happy thinking we’re going to be buying a kitty condo. But no… oh oh nooo…. My husband.. the minimalist.. wants to engineer his own kitty condo. He wants to be fully in control of what it looks like, how it’s made, what it’s made of and even the color. A weekend later is was done.

You guessed it my faithful bloggy readers. After 3 years of telling me that kitty condo were too big and messy, my husband built THIS!!!

The Kitty Condo that ate New York!!!

For some scope of size.. that’s our 3.5′ tall sideboard on the left and our 4′ tall DVD case on the right. So the condo is a little over 3.5′. Not exactly what I’d call small.

Of course, our cats LOVE it.

Has it stopped them from clawing the sofa? Sort of. Sometimes they get distracted and still claw a little bit, but it’s not nearly as much as they did in the past. The condo looks great, and the Engineer did a great job putting it together.

It is quite large, and for someone who wanted a large condo, I’m thrilled. I just wonder why it was ok for the husband to build a ginormous kitty condo but it wasn’t ok to buy one?