Couch Hack for Your Cat
Introduction: Couch Hack for Your Cat
Couch Hack: A Tale of Bravely Demolishing Our Couch to Add a Space for Our Cat.
This is less of a step by step Instructable and more of a demonstration of risk, bravery, and an almost obsessive need to spoil our cat.
I was inspired by a prototype cat tunnel couch that has made rounds across the internet for some time now. It doesn't seem like it will actually ever become a product so I put it on my list of things I'd want to build myself. It was a silly idea that I thought I'd never actually do, but then quarantine came around and now here we are! I originally tried to design the cat climb for our couch to have just as many holes and entrances as the tunnel design did but it would have probably compromised the structure of our existing couch. Instead, I went with a simpler design that can still provide your cat with a fun new space to play and explore. I took on this ambitious project with my wife <PERSON>, it would have been impossible to do all on my own. You'll see both of us working on different parts of the projects throughout the steps. And of course our cat, Ramekin, kept us in line with his managerial oversight every step of the way...
This project improved our couch in many ways beyond us doting on our cat. It also added:
* A coffee bar/cat nap surface on the back. Cat hair in your coffee!
* Outlets incorporated into the couch itself for phone charging and more. You could plug in a crockpot!
* New and improved cushioning for the back. 787
No more saggy beer-belly cushions!
* Fixing our oddly specific problem that the couch was too deep for comfortable sitting. Proper back support!
At the end of the Instructable I have also demonstrated that the same modifications could create a nice storage space for books, games, or whatever else you want to store right within the couch itself. These upgrades are clever for pet and non-pet owners alike!
Since every single couch in the world is different it doesn't make sense to go into too much detail on the specifics of our build, but hopefully you'll pick up some ideas and gain some courage to take on an almost certainly foolish idea of your own!
Supplies
At a minimum:
-Bravery
-Foolhardiness
-Room in your budget to replace your couch in case everything goes terribly wrong
-Time to invest in trips to the hardware store because you are making this up as you go
-Probably every tool you own
-Lots of 1/2" plywood
Step 1: Couch Deconstruction
Take some farewell pictures of your couch, it'll never be quite the same after this...
This wasn't a very nice or expensive piece of furniture so the risk of everything going terribly and needing a new one was accounted for. I was already in the market for a new sofa because I hated the state of the saggy cushions and there was no simple way to replace them as they were built into the frame itself. So, we either had to buy a new one or we could bravely attempt to improve it ourselves! We, being handy tinkers, decided it was worth the risk to see if we could construct our own, perfect, bespoke couch.
I recommend using a seam ripper to separate the fabric as it proves incredibly handy to save as much of the material as possible for future use. We ended up having to make little upholstered pieces here and there to hide ugly areas that didn't go exactly to plan. Reusing the salvaged material allowed the new construction additions to blend in to the rest of the original fabric.
Be careful of sharp bits from the tack strips and splinters!
Because this was a cheap couch there was little material used for the frame and it was just barely held together with some industrial staples. This ended up being perfect for our needs as it was already a very open design, not a lot of material to remove, and I didn't feel like we could do any worse than it already was. I would bet a more expensive couch might be a bit harder to deconstruct and build around.
It was at this point that I uncovered the little framed windows over the armrests, a space the just happened to be the perfect fit for an electrical outlet. I was now going to make the couch project way more complicated that it had any right to be.
You can see in the last picture the exact moment we knew there was no going back....
Step 2: Take It Down Even Further
This was the scarier part after removing all the fabric, actually cutting away pieces of the frame in order to make space for our custom design. We never knew if a board we removed was going to be the one keystone piece that kept the entire thing standing! 787