Cardboard Gingerbread Cat House
Introduction: Cardboard Gingerbread Cat House
For someone who has made at least five different cat houses out of cardboard this year, you think I'd get tired of it. But I'm not and I probably won't ever be.
Making little cat houses out of cardboard is kind of like being an amateur architect. It takes math and planning and creativity. That's not to say I didn't come up with a lot of ideas while actively working on this project -- there was a lot of improvisation involved.
This particular cat house is supposed to look like a gingerbread house. The cardboard is kind of like the gingerbread and white paint is kind of like icing, and it was a lot of fun putting it all together. It was the perfect project to get me in the Christmas spirit.
There were a lot of steps involved so, without further ado, let's get started.
Step 1: Supplies
You'll need:
* 1 large cardboard box
* 1 medium-sized cardboard box
* 1 small cardboard box/extra cardboard
* 1 cat scratcher bed (or another box)
* Hot glue gun + hot glue sticks
* Scissors
* X-acto/craft knife
* White acrylic paint
* Paintbrushes
Step 2: Build the Base
First, start with your large cardboard box. Hot glue the smaller lid flaps to the larger flaps (on both ends) so it's sturdier and can't be opened from either end.
Grab your medium-sized cardboard box (I had to feed my cat in order to get her off of it) and cut two large rectangles, big enough to be the roof for your large box.
(My large box was about 19" wide x 11" tall x 14" deep and each one of the two cardboard rectangles I cut was 23" wide x 16" tall.)
Hot glue the roof rectangles onto the box, with some of the roof overlapping, and then hot glue them together where the edges meet at the top.
As you can see, it's already starting to look like a house!
Step 3: Make the Gable
Now to make the gable and fill out the second story of the house:
Grab the cat scratcher bed and hold it up against the front of the roof in the very center. Grab a pencil and trace around the sides and top (leave the bottom intact). Once you can fit the cat scratcher bed inside, cut a rectangular hole on the other side.
(We'll be cutting these holes more later on; this is just a starting point.)
At this point, you can also hot glue the flap that you left from the first hole you cut to the front of the cat scratcher bed. 644
See the third picture for what that looks like.
Step 4: Cut the Gable Roof
Cut a piece of cardboard that looks like the first picture. I didn't really measure anything -- I kind of just winged it.
Here's how I did it: I cut a rectangle that, when folded in half, was long enough to cover the top edges of the cat scratcher bed. It was approximately 23" long by 10" wide. But since the roof needed to be straight, the edges that attach to the roof needed to be diagonal. So I just trimmed them at an angle until they lined up with the house's roof.
Then I hot glued it in place.
Then (and I forgot to take a picture of this part) I cut out the triangular piece that was just under the gable roof with my X-acto knife. You can see that part marked in red on the last photo in this step.
Step 5: Finish the Gable
Now to make it look more like a house.
Cut an equilateral pentagon cardboard piece that's as wide as the front part of the cat scratcher bed and tall enough to fit snugly under the gable roof. Draw and cut a simple window out of the top half.
Hot glue this piece underneath the gable, to the front of the cat scratcher bed.
This is your completed gable!
As you can see, this is the point where I also cut out windows and a door on the first floor of the house.
Step 6: Add Some Reinforcements
For some simple reinforcement brackets, use cardboard!
From your scrap of cardboard, cut strips that are approximately 1.5" tall by 4" wide and make sure the cardboard corrugation is running vertically. Make a small slice in the middle of the strip, but only go through the top layer. That way, you can have a right angle for a sufficient bracket.
Hot glue a bunch of these brackets inside of the cat house, reinforcing the gable to the main part of the house. I think I used about 8 to 10 of them to make the gable really secure. 959