I've also been starting on a new cat tree. The one I have now is over 20 years old and has been through a lot. The sisal rope has been clawed completely loose in places (which is really fine, I WANTED it to be used) but it's looking awfully shabby. The carpet on the top is coming off, the carpet on the middle perch is shredding strings. I bought some sonotube to make perches with this time, getting fancy! Also, when the local fabric store went out of business, I got some of the heavy duty tubes that upholstry fabric is rolled on. My nephew cut one in half for me, and drilled three holes in each tube for dowels. I'm covering it with more sisal, and this will be a cute little three-rung stepladder between levels.
Toby was wearing himself out, chasing the rope end wiggling around as I was wrapping the ladder, but I stopped and taped the free end down when I decided I needed some hot glue to put around the wrapped dowel. He came over to check the ladder out, then got tired of waiting for me to entertain him again.
I've even been thinking about doing some quilted, washable covers for the new sonotube perches. Here's a picture of a tree with sonotube perches, but my cat tree is going to look different, with half tubes and a whole tube cave for them to snuggle in. Have any of you ever combined quilting and cat-tree making? Any advice?
