He is still loving his palace! I'm so glad that he still appreciates it, it's his own hideout when he doesn't want to be disturbed
That is amazing! I've been thinking for a long time of doing the same thing. Any hints before setting out? Thanks.
Well, here are a few hints I can come up with offhand before setting out~~
1. If you call up your local carpet dealers, they may sell you a cut of their leftover carpet scraps for cheap. Some places will sell them cheaper, so call a few to compare. One carpet dealer was kind enough to tell me that you can actually go to dumpsters and salvage a lot of still good quality carpet (just that new homeowners prefer to put in their own when they move in). Unfortunately I was too impatient to wait around for the darn rain to stop before dumpster hunting
2. The same day I bought a piece of scrap carpet, I found that the business next door had thrown out quite a few large pieces of wood (I think they were a sign making business) so I grabbed those and was able to make the platforms and base out of them. If you drive by businesses especially on Saturday morning before the garbage trucks arrive, you can find scrap wood.
3. We bought a circular saw, jigsaw, drill, electric stapler (very useful with this project), screws, liquid nails all-purpose construction adhesive, a concrete tube (I think ours was 12"), utility knife to cut the carpet (be sure to get the platinum blades for this purpose, they last longer because carpet is pretty rough to cut), and various wood pieces to build the trunk and hut at the top of the tower. Hot glue gun is always helpful with gluing on the decorations (in our case, the bamboo mats that I bought at a dollar store)
4. This project took a bit longer than I had anticipated, but that was mostly because we didn't fully organize everything before setting out to the hardware store and/or we came up with different ideas to put things together. Planning is key
5. If I had to do this all over again, I think I would have bought more sisal rope to wrap around more of the trunk. Racer loves to scratch on it, but I think it would have been possible for him to actually climb up if it was fully wrapped in sisal. Be sure to wrap it very tightly!
I hope these hints help! They are very basic, but you should check out the links I posted above. They have some amazing ideas and it is so much fun to mix and match to your own taste!!
