This post combines three things I’m passionate about: pets, writing and woodworking (I couldn’t figure out how to include bass fishing). When my Wisconsin pen-pal and fellow worker in wood, Steven Johnson, told me he was building a piece of furniture for his cats, I thought, “Now, there’s a blog post being written for me!”
Steve and I both write for Highland Woodworking’s online magazine about woodworking (more on that below).
You’ve seen Steven’s cats on MyPetsDoctor.com before. Pictured at right is Oscar and at lower left is Dewey.
This is the text of the message Steve sent me recently:
“Thought that you being ‘My Pet’s Doctor’ you might enjoy seeing one of the projects I will be covering in the next Down To Earth Woodworks column… this started as an idea for a simple set of pet steps for my spoiled kitties, then morphed into ‘Oh, it could also have some storage,’ to ‘Oh, it’s going to be in the house so I better make it pretty,’ to ‘If I am going to put doors on it, I might as well put them on both sides so I can orient it either way and still have access,’ to ‘curly maple.’ There’s not much left to say after ‘curly maple.’
“I also figured that it would make a pretty plant stand if someone wanted to build it for that purpose. Do your projects ever get out of hand?”
Well, no, I told Steve, because (a) I’m not talented enough for my projects to blossom beyond their basic destiny, and, (b) I don’t have enough woodworking time to let my mind go beyond a specific task. Those are two pretty limiting characteristics.
At the time of that e-mail Steve already had the project mostly finished, and sent me these photos below:
It occurred to me that other pet-fanciers might also like to build this project, so to read Steve’s post on their construction, click here.
If you would like to subscribe to Highland Woodworking’s free monthly online magazine, click here.
As you probably already figured out, Steve’s column is called Down To Earth Woodworks. Mine is Tips From Sticks-In-The-Mud Woodshop and to see this month’s column you can click here.
If you decide to build Steve’s design, please send photos so that we can see how yours turned out. Be sure to include pictures of your pets enjoying it! There is an e-mail link at the bottom of my Tips column.
See you next week, Dr. Randolph.
