In early December 2010, Louie, my guitar instructor, told me about a stray kitten he was feeding at his house. He told me that the kitten did not have a place out of the weather and that he was going to use a cardboard box wrapped in a trash bag for a house for her. Having a lot of 'scrap' wood laying around from other projects, I told him I would build the kitty a house.
Immediately upon departing from my lesson that night, I started planning this project. The goals were somewhat obvious: To create a lasting shelter for the kitty; to incur as little additional costs as possible; to utilize 'scrap' wood in order to reduce storage footprint; to make the cat house somewhat attractive as Louie has a higher power to answer to (his wife) and it would be in an obvious location (right off of his front door).
I inventoried what supplies I had: About 9 pieces of 1/4" luan 15" x 20"; About 20 pieces of pine 3/4" x 1/2" and varying in length from 10" to 20"; 6 brown 3-tab shingles in questionable condition left over from building my garden shed in October 2002; several pieces of MDF at varying dimensions; latex paint left over from various painting projects; and miscellaneous fasteners including 18 gauge brad nails.
I started building it a few days later, and after working on it, I realized I was subconsciously building a small-scale version of my garden shed. I used the luan for the main panels and the pine pieces for support and trim. I fastened the parts together using Tite-Bond II glue and brad nails, and put on the shingles with drywall nails. I cut out the panels using a circular saw with a cutting guide, and used a small electric miter saw to cut out the trim and support pieces.
After looking at the old paint I had, I was unsure of its condition, so I decided to go against one goal in order to satisfy another one by purchasing new paint. Not wanting to spend a lot of money, the local Lowe's Home Improvement Store had 7 oz. 'sample' size paints on sale for about $3.00. Lowe's mixed them in the colors I wanted. After looking at pictures of his house, I decided to use 'Beach' as the main color with 'Cabin Red' for the trim. I utilized the same color motiff for this page.
It took a couple of days to constuct and paint Louie's Cat House. If I would have utilized all new material instead of 'scrap', the time to build would have been less, but the cost would have more than doubled. The additional materials I had to purchase were paint, a 2' x 2' piece of 15/32" plywood for the floor, Tite-Bond II wood glue, and some chip paint brushes. The total cost was under $20.00. Louie was quite impressed with the finished project, so if the finicky kitten lives in it, then all goals have been satisfied.