Cat Tree–Unboxing and Assembly

It looks very much as if we have found two kittens, who will be ready to leave their mum in about a month’s time. To prepare for their arrival, we have been ordering a few things, and my hubby has begun work on some better defences to keep them in the garden.

Today the kitty tree I bought from Ebay arrived, in a heavy box.

Unboxing

All the parts laid out in order.

They had provided everything exactly as set out in the instructions with the exact number of screws etc. They also provided an Allen key to screw it all together. I separated the different sized screws into containers before I began, to make the assembly easier.

Assembling

When attaching the brackets onto the back of the ladder, I made the mistake of tightening the screws too much. I had to loosen them when assembling the ladder to the tree in order to make it easier to line it up correctly. It was a simple matter to tighten them up again once the ladder was in the correct position.

At this point I realised that I had inadvertently used the single medium-length screw instead of one of the long ones, so I had to start removing screws until I found it! Fortunately this didn’t take long. Using a longer one in its place would not have worked, because it would have poked through the bottom of the upper box.

The completed cat tree

I can’t believe this whole thing came out of that cardboard box! My hubby is going to make the box into a base for a kitty castle for them to play in. He has made one of these for each generation of kittens we have had – a series of cardboard boxes glued and taped together, with lots of holes cut in them so the kittens can chase each other through the different levels, and poke their paws through. This provides endless hours of entertainment for kitties and humans alike!

The construction of the kitty tree is heavy and substantial and the quality excellent. If anyone is thinking of getting a tree for their kitties I would recommend getting one from Ebay as I paid about half what I would have done had I bought one of this size from a pet shop. This particular one is by Purlove, and they also make a beige-coloured one. The assembly wasn’t difficult and the whole thing took me about 1 1/2 hours to complete – I made one or two mistakes but these were quickly remedied.

I am pleased that it looks quite stylish and will fit in any room. The fur fabric covering the pieces is extremely soft and luxurious, and we both like the dark grey colour, which will also co-ordinate very nicely with our kittens who will be silver tabby! I can’t wait to see them playing on it.

The kitty tree is taller than I am! It is heavy and not likely to get tipped over when being played on. It has lots of interesting things for kitties – different levels, lots of scratching posts – these pillars are wrapped with rough rope – places to hide, and platforms to sit on, nice and high up, where all kitties like to be, and three hanging toy mice for them to play with. There’s also a little ladder to take them between two of the levels, and there are plenty of convenient and interesting features to enable them to play well together on it. At the bottom is an arch made of stuff like bottle brush – they will enjoy going through this and getting an automatic grooming! The tree is also large enough to accommodate them when they are fully grown. I am hoping that having this nice tall tree will discourage them from constantly leaping up on things we don’t want them on.

Now the only thing missing is a pair of kittens to play on it!