DIY Farmhouse Style Cat Litter Box Furniture

People who know us (my husband and me) know that we love our cats.  We have multiple cats in the house that are our “inside cats” and we have rescue cats.  Some of the rescue cats are allowed indoors especially during extreme cold weather.  It can get crazy in the house when there are many cats roaming around.

We always want the cats to be healthy and happy.  We make frequent trips to our local vet, we create and environment they love inside and outside and we give them healthy food.

How To Keep Healthy & Happy Cats  

We are constantly creating DIY projects for the kitties and I am going to show you one today that we just finished.  I am so excited about it.  This is how we keep them happy.

To keep them healthy we like to get the best food we can.  When we saw the Rachael Ray™ Nutrish® Longevity Chicken with Chickpeas & Salmon Recipe food we knew we had to try it.  They liked it but they always love the  Rachael Ray™ Nutrish® dry food too.  It is their fave.

If you like creating pet furniture you will love this cat bed from some recycled dresser drawers.

The cats love it and they don’t even know that real U.S. farm-raised chicken is always the #1 ingredient, plus real salmon,  and that it’s a real superfood blend for lifelong nutrition with a focus on your cat’s heart, mind and body.  If you would like more details be sure to visit the Nutrish brand website.

We also got the Rachael Ray™ Nutrish® Purrfect Entrees™ Sea-Sational Florentine™ Recipe.  These are yummy recipes made with wild caught salmon, white meat chicken, or yellowfin tuna – accented with tender veggies and served in delicious culinary sauces. They are culinary classics… purrfected! And I love that they are healthy for the cats.  The Nutrish Purrfect Entrees have no artificial flavors, colors or artificial preservatives so we know they are a good choice.

We purchased the Nutrish® Longevity online from Target and it was easy as can be.  Just add this food and the Nutrish Purrfect Entrees to the cart and follow the steps to pay.

The stores we looked at in town didn’t have it at the time but we have noticed it is now available at our local Shopko store.  Yay!  Want some coupons?  You can find some on this coupon page!  And if you don’t live in Emmetsburg you can check out this list of stores where you can purchase.

Helping Other Animals In Need

They love to eat it…but we also love that a portion of proceeds from each sale of Nutrish is donated to The Rachael Ray Foundation, which helps animals in need.

Through December 2017, more than $23.5 million dollars have been donated to animal charities and other organizations that do good for animals. The funds are used for food, medical supplies, treatments, and more.

Many more animals around the country need help, and through The Rachael Ray Foundation, together we can make a real difference in the lives of many four-legged friends.

Since helping to rescue cats in our neighborhood,  it makes me happy that when we purchase their food we are helping more cats and other animals.   You can help too just by purchasing Nutrish products for your pet.

I am starting a little section of my blog for the cats so if you would like to see some pics you can check out my Rescue Cats section. It is just in the beginning stages so check back for more photos, videos and cat related projects.

DIY Farmhouse Style Cat Litter Box Furniture 

Now for the DIY kitty project that I promised.  As I mentioned above we love to create projects for the cats.  These are projects that I can always get Jeff to work on with no problems because he loves to make things for the cats.

These are the materials we used:

Two matching end tables that were given to us

1×8 pine boards

1×3  pine boards

1×2 pine boards

Lath boards

1/4 inch Masonite

Two Carpet Tiles

Closet System

Hinges and Knobs

White Primer

White Paint

Black Spray Paint

Gray Stain

Satin Clear Coat (spray can)

HomeRight Paint Sprayer

Liquid Nails

Wood Glue

Brad Nailer and Brads

Electric Drill and Drill Bits

Palm Sander

We had most of these things but did end up purchasing most of the lumber and the closet system for the barn doors.

Getting Started

Here is what our end tables looked like before we started.  They were given to us and dropped off at the house one day by a friend who didn’t want them anymore.  I have to say they have been in the garage for a while but that is okay.

In my “project vision” I saw these tables stacked one on top of the other as a diy farmhouse style cat litter box furniture piece.

We recently decided to add another litter box upstairs in the bathroom.  BUT…I did NOT want to see it.  It had to be concealed into a piece of furniture.

My Plan

My plan was to stack the tables and basically cover them in wood slats.  I wanted a barn door system on the top portion to hold the litter, the scoop and the other products and to have cupboard doors on the bottom section so I can remove the litter box for scooping and an entrance on the side for the kitties!

Do-able?  You bet!

Jeff did all of the building and covering of the tables.  He does great work.  He started by building up the areas that were recessed so the sides would be even to add pieces of wood all along the outside.

This part took a while because nothing was square.  Then he started creating the openings for the cat entrance, the barn doors and the cupboard doors.and adding wood to wrap around the rest of the tables.

The Doors

The barn doors are my favorite part so I was excited when he started to work on them.  We could not afford the special barn door hardware so we needed a way to make something look like barn door hardware without the price tag.  He thought a closet system would be the best way.  We spent $14 on this.

He used a hack saw to cut it to length and fit it into the place he had already created when he made the opening.  The barn doors are on the top section of the cat box litter furniture piece.

All of the doors were created with masonite and lath pieces. The floors of each section are pieces of masonite.

We attached the closet system rollers to the front of the doors.  They worked like a charm and I am really happy with our budget friendly version.

Once everything was built, we took it all apart for painting.

Adding The Paint

I fired up my HomeRight paint sprayer and put on 2 coats of white primer and then one coat of white paint.

I also painted all of the hardware with flat black spray paint.

The top of the entire cat litter box furniture piece is covered with 3 pieces of 1×8 pine boards that I treated with two coats of gray stain from Americana DecoArt.  I love this stain.  I used it on my burlap dresser makeover too.

This was after the first coat. After the second coat had completely dried I sprayed on a clear coat for protection.

Finishing Up

There were just a few things we did to finish up this project.

First we needed to figure out a way to keep the top section from sliding or moving around without bolting them together.  If we ever wanted to move it we wanted an easy way to take it apart and move it in two sections.

Jeff came up with the block system.  Since he added “floors” the tables it created a inverted bottom.  So he added blocks to the top of the lower piece that would hold the upper piece in place.  All we had to do was place the top section over the blocks.  It worked perfectly.

Then, last but not least we cut carpet tiles to fit the side sections.  We did not add wood to these sections on purpose so we could create a scratching post side.  They love it too.

We added liquid nails to the back of the cut carpet tiles then weighted them down until they were set.

After they were set we moved everything upstairs and put it all together.  I am telling you, this is one of my favorite pieces we have ever created!  I love the way it looks.

The Final Look

What do you guys think?

This is how this corner of the bathroom looked before.  I am embarrassed to even show this picture.  This chair was supposed to be re-covered years and years ago but the cats sort of took it over as their own so I never did it.  We got rid of it.  Thank goodness.

I am planning and creating a mood board for this bathroom remodel.  It has all sorts of grays, whites and more farmhouse components but for now, I am adding pieces with that in mind.

The kitties were in it and using it right away!

And they got some treats too.  An extra meal.

This was a long post.  Thanks so much for sticking with me.  Be sure to visit the Rescue Cats section and if you want to see more DIY Furniture makeovers you can visit that page too!  And you can find my cat and dog rescue shirts on Amazon!

This is Sasha posing with one of the shirts!  The shirt says “Rescue the mistreated, Save the injured, Love the abandoned” .   You can find it here on Amazon.  

If you are cat or dog specific then there are these fun choices too!

Cat Rescue Shirt

Dog Rescue Shirt

See you next time!

Michelle