When the pandemic started, Mi-Anne Chan was fed up with staring at the beige scratching post in her two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. She had D.I.Y. Projects during the lockdown, an idea was born, inspired by the designs of the Cat Haus company.
Ms. Chan, 26, donated a $ 150 budget to modernize her cat Bootsy's home. During the summer, she spent about six days filming the process of stripping and replacing the carpet waste. She consulted Marci Koski, a cat behaviorist, and learned that Bootsy prefers sisal rope as a scratching post. (A disco ball was also installed to satisfy Bootsy's lust for shiny objects.)
"The goal was so that it wasn't so hideous," said Ms. Chan. "In a small apartment, a scratching post takes up so much real estate that you have to have something sweet."
Aesthetically pleasing scratching posts have been appearing on social media for some time. Some may have vegetable colored scratch pads or organic catnip leaves, others may have a Greek marble base. Behind this reinterpretation of cat furniture are companies such as Cat Haus, Tuft and Paw, Rinn, Petfusion, Litterbox, MiaCara, Tateno and Cattsup.
Lora Lombardi, the 28-year-old founder of Cat House, started building cat furniture when her gray tabby cat started scratching all of the furniture in her new apartment on Tuesday. Ms. Lombardi, who is based in Portland, Oregon, takes a sustainable approach to her pieces, building patchwork cat towers from recycled materials.
"I decided to make her a cat-scratch that wasn't boring, soulless, beige, or from a MegaCorp," she said.
When 28-year-old Axelle Vertommen couldn't find a scratching post that would match the interior of her home in Antwerp, Belgium, she decided to make her own out of cardboard. In 2018 the interior architect and furniture designer began developing the “Gattorre”, a collection of four postmodern scratching posts, each costing 275 euros.
In 2001, Kenneth Yuzva was running a carpet company in Los Angeles when he realized he could combine his knowledge of carpets with 3-D design skills to create bespoke animal furniture.
In 2003, he founded the Hollywood Kitty Company and expanded his carpet business into a makeshift pet furniture factory. Instagram has helped grow its business and since the pandemic began, Mr Yuzva, now based in Cleveland, Ohio, has seen his orders grow 20 percent.
For $ 899 and waiting for over a year, customers can get their own Enchanted Forest Kitty Sanctuary. The piece, which Mr. Yuzva took 250 hours to build, has seven levels and can accommodate over 20 cats.
"I can't really guarantee that the carpet will last 100 years, but I'm doing everything I can to make these things as strong and good as possible," said 47-year-old Yuzva.
Jessica Portillo bought one of the "Treasure Mini-Scratchers" from the Hollywood Kitty Company in 2019. Ms. Portillo, 27, who lives in a Brooklyn apartment, wants every piece of furniture she buys to match the pink decor of her apartment.
Ms. Portillo didn't mind spending $ 179 on her cat scratcher since scratching posts are "already expensive, so you could get a cute one too." She said the heart-shaped piece had become a favorite of her two Persian cats, Sunny and Rodney: "They don't go anywhere, so I'd rather get them something nice where they are happy too."
Since you made it this far, here are some of the best home scratching posts according to Wirecutter, a product review website for the New York Times Company.
