Practolo Blog

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

Interior Decorating for Cat Owners

Interior Decorating for Cat Owners - Part 1: Protecting your
possessions

The first thing a cat owner should know about home décor is to
keep it simple. Cats are completely convinced that they are in
charge, that the house and its possessions belong to them, and
that they have every right to break rip or shred anything they
like. Even a well trained cat (a possible oxymoron) will
occasionally get overzealous, and with an inadvertent sweep of
their tail will knock your favorite decoration from its place to
a pile on the floor.

This disregard for your possessions, overt or otherwise,
requires that you use some strategy when deciding on the
placement of various decorative pieces. This is going to amount
basically to common sense. Any surface that a cat can reach,
they will walk on. Therefore low shelves or dressers should not
contain any objects that are fragile. Items should be moved
towards the middle of a surface, or back against the wall, to
prevent them being knocked onto the floor. Items that have a
broad or sturdy base should replace other more top heavy
objects. Decorative accents that can shatter, such as ceramics
or stone statues, may have to be replaced by steal or wood.

One way to display fragile items is to move them up. High
shelves that are isolated from cat “stepping stones” will be out
of dangers way. The same may be true of tall dressers, although
unfortunately some cats will take a tall isolated dresser as a
personal challenge, which they simply have to climb. Your décor
will have to be matched to the personality of your cat.

Mirrors can also provide a problem, as some cats tend to attack
their own reflection. If your cat has a problem with this,
buying velvet or satin cloth and draping it over the mirror can
be a decorative way to solve this.

Plants can be one of the biggest décor problems a cat owner will
face. Your pet can chew on leaves, dig in the soil, or urinate
in them. Luckily, there are ways both to decorate around these
problems as well as to train your cat out of them. For biting
and chewing of leaves, a natural spray repellent applied to the
plant will cause most cats to avoid it. To stop a cat from
rooting in or excreting in your plant you have to realize that
the dirt in the pot is reminiscent of the cats litter box. In
order to change this, use stones or gravel to fill over the top
of the dirt. This will remove the cat’s fascination with the
soil, and can be a lovely decorative accent to your plant

Cat grass is a special kind of plant you can grow in your home
that is specifically formulated to be safe for felines, and to
provide them with certain vitamins they may be lacking.
Purchasing this can give your cat an acceptable alternative to
messing with your plants. When you see your cat eating the cat
grass, reward them lavishly. When you see them going near other
plants, pick them up and place them in front of the cat grass.
If they eat the offered vegetation, then reward them. In this
way you can use positive reinforcement to turn one behavior into
another

Cats will scratch anything which is made of cloth, including
couches, drapes, and pillows. Because of this, you may want to
start by spraying natural cat repellent on your more attractive
pieces. A plastic couch cover may have to be used for a short
time while the cat learns to behave itself. Buying your pet a
scratching post and praising it for scratching that instead of
your couch is a good way to positively reinforce the negative
behavior out of the cat. You will have to carefully monitor
their progress, and only remove protective coverings from your
furniture when you are sure they are safe.

While cats are a hazard to most décor, planning ahead can
minimize these problems. Cats are so difficult to train that it
is often easier to simply decorate around them. Using common
sense, and paying attention, should allow you to develop a
setting that compliments your pet owning experience.

Interior Decorating for Cat owners Part 2: Protecting your pet

If you own a cat, then designing the décor of your home will
require taking several precautions in order to protect your pet
from harm. Glass items should be avoided both because they are
easy to shatter, and because fragments of glass can then become
embedded in your cat’s skin. Other items to avoid are those that
have sharp edges, spikes, or that have small pieces which can
break off and be swallowed.

You should also consider whether any object you bring into your
home would be unhealthy if eaten by the feline. These items may
include plants, flowers, and scented candles. Cats are fairly
self-sufficient, as well as intelligent, however they are also
curious, and you do not want to give them any easy method for
hurting themselves.

Cats are fascinated by string, as part of their inherent
instinct to kill snakes. This fascination may carry over to
electrical wires. If you catch your cat attacking or playing
with electric cords you should stop them immediately. This is a
very dangerous problem that can not only result in the cat
electrocuting themselves, but also in causing a fire. If your
pet persists in this problem, one way to protect your wires is
to wrap them in duct tape. This will make them harder to break
through and less appetizing for a cat to chew on. There are also
many natural sprays which have specially formulated smells that
will cause a cat to avoid an area in which it is sprayed.

Curtain cords hold much the same fascination that electrical
wires do, and they can also be a danger from strangulation. If
you have rope that dangles too far from your curtain, the cat
may attack it, causing it to tangle. If the cat becomes caught
in the tangle itself, it can be very dangerous. Long hanging
cords should be tied up out of the cats reach, or cut so that
they do not dangle where a feline can reach them.

The level of caution you should use is based upon your
individual cat. Monitor your pet and your home, and change your
setting as necessary. Always use caution when bringing a new
object into an area, and be certain you don’t introduce anything
which can be harmful to the cat. Mostly, just use common sense
and try to remove any obvious hazards to where they can’t be
reached.

Interior Decorating for Cat Owners Part 3: The Beauty of Cat
Decor

For the most part cat décor is less about being beautiful and
more about keeping your pet safe and comfortable. However there
are so many manufacturers of cat products that you can fine
almost any of the items mentioned above in several different
colors. Try purchasing items such as litter boxes and scratching
posts in matching or complimentary colors. If you match the hue
to the rest of your setting you may be able to blend them
seamlessly into the area

Alternatively, you may want to set aside a space just for the
cat’s things, in order to separate them from the look of the
rest of the room. While this won’t completely eliminate the
intrusion of cat toys onto your setting, it can allow you to
create interplay between the cat’s possessions and yours. If
your home is predominated by a single color such as green or
blue, purchasing matching black cat possessions can actually
compliment this look. If your colors are more mottled, then
patterned cat toys, or subdued sandy colored ones, may be a
better way to create equality in the room’s hue.

The litter box is one of the most troublesome cat possessions
to decorate around. It stinks, it’s dirty, and it’s generally
surrounded by stray litter tramped out of the box by your
oblivious cat. One way to deal with this item is to hide it,
either in a bathroom, or somewhere out of the way such as a
closet. If you don’t have anywhere to hide it, then you should
consider getting a covered cat box. They are much more
attractive then leaving the litter bare, and will also reduce
the smell. Unfortunately these are rarely attractive, and become
dirty easy. To create your own custom covering, get a giant
cardboard box and place it over the litter. Cut a hole in the
front where the door is. Cover the box in decorative paper, such
as wrapping paper, and then coat this in plastic to protect it
from moisture. This method should only be used in conjunction
with an existing plastic cat cover; otherwise moisture will seep
into the cardboard and turn it to mush.

Cats can make wonderful loving pets. They are fairly self
sufficient, and don’t require much attention. However, they are
still animals, and will be oblivious to the beauty of your home.
In order to maintain the look of your setting, while maintaining
the safety of your pet, you will have to plan the décor that you
develop in your home. Every cat is different, so let your home
evolve with the pet, until you reach a stasis in which safety
and beauty are at their best.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 4:42 pm and is filed under School of Lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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