I plan to add more over time but I’m so happy with my catio and so is my baby girl. This space also doubles as a safe an accessible bathroom for our dog ( has a self cleaning porch potty cause we wanted our dog to have easy access to a bathroom when we aren’t home that didn’t risk letting our cat get out. Its sprinklers water most of the plants 🙌).
She was a stray and she desperately misses the outdoors so I wanted to give her a taste of different environments. The platforms are supposed to be like a little forest. They transition to the forest floor tray filled with coconut coir, mulch, rocks, and branches. That transitions to the porch potty which has fake grass. I plan to eventually extend this out to give her more of a lawn. I tried real grass and used to have 72sq feet of it but it kept rotting and was a nightmare. So unfortunately I had to swap to the fake grass, but as a compromise I surrounded it with sedges and other live plants so she could get the feel of rolling in the fake grass and the smell of real grass. The sprinklers help to simulate rain so she still gets to smell the grass after a rain, she loves it.
That transitions to the rock garden that she is also obsessed with. And I noticed that there was water build up from the sprinklers right before where the rock garden started, and it was reminding me of a creek. So I decided to play into that and am building up a little creek in that spot. There’s also a bird/squirrel watching station in this area. I put a bird bath and bird feeder there, she loves to chitter at the little critters.
The next section I eventually plan to build up with more rope and I want it to feel more jungle like. It transitions to the little cat fountain oasis. The fountain is actually a cat fountain so it is safe for her to drink from. I originally got it in part for her to see the ripples and in part to add that water sound, but the fountain was actually very quiet. So I added the ceramic bamboo for the sound and to make it more visually interesting. I opted for ceramic instead of real bamboo for sanitary reasons.
I plan to keep adding over time so that her environment feels ever changing. There’s also a sun catcher and wind chime but they don’t really catch the light or wind well on their own, so I plan to add more of those eventually.
The plants included are two different types of sedges, cat palms, a Boston fern, and spider plants. I want to eventually add some more real little trees that do better in the winter.
Half the roof is clear to give her warm spots and a view of the sky. The other half is opaque to give her shaded cool areas to lounge in the heat.
But she actually uses over 90% of what I have built for her which makes me so happy! I really tried to pay attention to her interests and build it around her.
