How to Build a Cool Cat Fort With Cardboard Boxes

Cardboard may be humanity's greatest gift to house cats. They love the feel of it and the sounds they can make with it. Cardboard boxes provide a welcome feel and sound along with the option to be enclosed and secreted, yet open enough to keep an eye on the rest of the household. The boxes in which bananas are shipped to retailers are a standard size, with two interlocking parts and openings sized for paws and eyes and for comings and goings. Ask the produce manager at a grocery store or supermarket for a few clean banana boxes and you can experiment with different arrangements and accessories.

Things You'll Need

  • Banana boxes
  • Zip ties
  • 1-inch dowel, 4 feet long
  • 1-foot-square plywood
  • Drill
  • Drill bit sized for your wood screws
  • Long wood screws
  • Appliance carton
  • Box cutter
  • Duct tape
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Instructions

    • 1

      Open one banana box and set the top on end with the opening turned away from the room. Set the bottom into the end of the top, like an L, either right-side-up or upside-down so the cat can go through the rectangles of both parts and be completely hidden. Fasten the boxes to each other with zip ties.

    • 2

      Attach the end of the dowel to the center of the plywood, using the screw. Slide two banana-box halves, on their sides, onto the dowel by the round air holes. Add a third box half at ground level, and fasten all the boxes together with zip ties.

    • 3

      Arrange two banana-box tops on their sides, facing each other. Place a box bottom between them at one end. Adjust the relationship of the boxes to the size of your cat so the cat just has space to go in and out between the two tops and through one or more of the central rectangular holes. Cut a roof, flat or peaked, from the appliance carton. Fasten all the pieces securely with zip ties.

    • 4

      Place an open half of a banana box in the far end of the appliance carton. Add some catnip to motivate your cat to explore the depths. Slide another box or two halfway in to partially block the entrance. Unglue the back flap of the large carton or cut one cat-sized hole in that area to give your cat a back way out.

    • 5

      Combine the sections to the extent that your space will allow. Fasten them with zip ties, especially those with any height, so they don't topple with your cat.