Positioning holes and horizontal trays

	Placement of the access holes and corresponding horizontal trays is at your discretion. The key is to mount your trays and cut the holes parallel to each other. Be sure to gauge the size of your holes to the size of your cat. Remember to take into account the additional space required by the carpet folds.

	To add your horizontal trays, arrange one as pictured at right and mark the position on the post. Check your guide marks with a square. Because this will be covered in carpet, you can anchor these trays using glue, screws, angle braces or dowels.

	Place your finished post on top of the piece of plywood you will use for the base. Position it in the exact center of the base plate. Trace the outline and carefully cut a hole in the base to snug against the post.

Assembling the base

Glue and screw 1x4 boards to plywood and add two braces perpendicular to the slot surrounding the post. We also added a bottom stop (1/4' plywood) recessed into the middle braces.

This permits anchoring the post to the base from the bottom and side braces. Do not attach the base and post permanently at this time.

(Note bottom plywood for strength)

The finished tree

After assembly, your cat tree should look something like our picture at right if you were using our dimensions.

Feel free to change the width, height or add additional horizontal trays, ledges or even 'branches' for your cats to play on.

The next phase of the project is to cover your cat tree with carpet and sisal rope. Working with carpet is a chore, but after a few cuts and measuring mistakes, you'll get the hang of it - and mistakes are easy to hide.

On the next page are the instructions for applying the carpet.