Among pet lovers it's a common, if somewhat weird, practice for them to give their animal a Facebook page or Twitter account, as if Spot and Felix had the wherewithal to operate a computer. But Portland, Oregon-based Mike and Megan Wilson, the husband-and-wife team behind CatastrophiCreations, are taking it one step further and claiming their cats can design and build.
One morning we woke up and stumbled into the living room. To our suprise, our new baby kitten had gotten into my tool box and taken apart our couch and rebuilt it into a cat bridge. After that we thought, "Bingo", we'll lock him in a room and start selling all of his creations on Etsy.
After a couple weeks we started feeling bad for the load we were putting on our new cat, so we got another cat to give him a hand and double the amount of orders we can produce. Toys for cats, by cats.
Gag aside, their Indiana Jones Cat Bridge ($150 to $180) has proven to be a hit, and the couple began designing and building more cat-based furniture. Hammocks, ramps, shelves, climbing holes, feeders, and even a Super-Mario-Bros.-inspired "complex":
While a notoriously low amount of cats have bank accounts, there's no shortage of owners willing to open the purse strings for their feline friends, and it didn't take long for Mike and Megan's business to grow. A lot. "For the first two months, we built everything in our 3rd floor apartment," the couple writes. "We had a miter saw and a table saw in our spare bedroom and did all the sanding by hand. We did all the cutting after the lady in the apartment under us went to work.
"After that, we graduated to renting the smallest garage in Portland to do all the wood cutting, sanding and staining... We are now backed up to the point that we can't keep up while working our other jobs and are going to start making cat furniture full time." To that end the duo have enlisted the help of local carpenter/woodworker Matt Kindall, and are now "in the process of moving into a huge space that finally has all the room we need, and we're excited to not be living in an apartment/workshop anymore."
And the couple aren't unaware crazy cat people—they do have a sense of humor about their work. "I built a wooden drinking fountain thinking it would blow up on the internet," Mike writes. "[Only one person wrote a] review and I'm pretty sure they're making fun of me. But any press is still press. So thank you."
Create a Core77 Account
Already have an account? Sign In
By creating a Core77 account you confirm that you accept the Terms of Use
Please enter your email and we will send an email to reset your password.
Comments
Hi , I just read your article explaining Cat Trees. Thanks for sharing that, I learned a lot from it! By the way, which would you recommend, sisal or carpeted scratching material? It's something I get asked quite often from my own blog's readers (http://www.cattree.uk), and I would love to know what you might think of it. Thanks, Jon