Building a cat tower for Toney!

I recently rescued a cute kitten from the pouring rain at my office. I've been wanting a cat for a while now and was just waiting for the right time. This cutie found me so I named him Toney after Saint Anthony.  (Saint Anthony is the patron Sanint of lost items/people, as Catholics, we ask him to interceed on our behalf to The Heavenly Father to find things that are lost) 

He is a kitten and he loves to play all the time, we wanted to give him more stuff to play with since he has to live in the shop, because of our allergies.  I wanted to get him a cat tower to provide hours of entertainment and exercise but they are quite expensive. Being the cheap person I am, I decided we could build one cheaper and it would probably last longer because it would be built out of quality material. Not to mention, I could customize it to what I want. So I looked around the shop and found enough material that we had left over from past projects. The only thing I would need to buy would be the natural fiber rope for a scratching post. 

This is the pile of stuff I had waiting for Eric when he got home. I had an idea of what I wanted and of course he changed a few things to make the design work better. 

We started out using old 3" PVC pipe and some 2x8 boards. 

He cut circles out to slide the pipe inside. This will be the base on one side. 

He then notched the pipe at the top to slide a smaller board in for the top shelf. 

He added another upright board to brace an extra shelf on the side. 

We then put in a smaller piece of PVC pipe to hang toys from. 

Almost complete but first I had to paint it.

 

After the paint dried, the following night we hung the hammock.  Now it is ready for Toney to try it out. 

The rope on the scratching post was less than $7, everything else was extra stuff hanging around the shop (including the toys). 

He is such a curious kitten. 

At least he liked to toys that I hung. Lol

Checking out the hammock. 

Yep, he likes it. 

He even likes the little hiding place made from an old tote. Notice the scratching station on top. Kittens need lots of places to scratch. Lol

A small amount of indoor/outdoor rug, old Rubbermaid tote, old cloth, old pieces of PVC pipe, extra wood and a few screws made for a customized cat tower. The best things about it, with this design, we can add to it at a later date to make it taller for more fun things for him. Most cat towers run anywhere from $100-$400 and sometimes more, I made this one for less than $7.00. 

(Please excuse the messy shop in the back ground of the pictures.)