On Friday I found an old doll bed at Goodwill. It was in pretty nasty shape, with ruffly white&pink fabric all over it and mildewy foam blocks filling up the whole inside of the bedframe. The base was enclosed in a plastic fabric - to hold in the foam, I guess. All in all, it was fairly gross but it had great potential. After work I ran back to see if it was still there and it was! How could other shoppers not have seen how wonderful this thing could be?!? LOL.

I stripped it down to the white frame and tossed all the rest in the trash. Cleaned it up and then started checking my fabric stash. Found a mattress-looking stripe and a pretty 1940's floral that went with it pretty well. I even had some deep red cording that would set off the flowers in the print.

I decided it could be a two-level cat bed.

First I made a hammock-style base for the top sleeping area and used velcro on both front and back so I could take it off to launder it. Then, of course, I had to make a little quilt to go over the hammock. I used a very simple design and tied it off instead of actually quilting it. I thought the cats would like the little bits of cord and they probably wouldn't have appreciated the quilting anyway. I made long, round bolster pillows for each side and a little square pillow because... well, just 'because'. The center of the square pillow is a bit of the trim cord, sewn up to look like a flower. Cute, huh? I covered a paper towel center with fabric and tied it on to one of the back legs - this give me a place to put the cat-toys-on-a-stick and tall feather toys.

For the bottom, where a trundle would be on a real day bed, I covered a new piece of 5" thick foam with fabric and trimmed with more of the deep red cording. In the photos, this piece is not in place because I still need to cut out a couple small metal bars across the bottom of the bed frame. They aren't structural supports and were only there as a base for the foam filler so taking them out won't affect the stability of the bed at all.

I had to make a few matching catnip-filled toys too.

As you can see, Jack Bauer likes it. The other cats have tried it out and seem to like it but Jack was my 'test cat' during construction and I think he's decided it's his.

Not bad for a 2 day project, if I do say so myself!

Original purchase - $10

28"x14"x5" foam pad - $21

Fabric & supplies used from stash on hand - $12

Making the cats happy - Pure joy

A fun indoor project when it's 95 degrees outside - priceless!

Kate

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Jack says "Mine!"

Square Pillow detail

Hammock

A pillow for his head

Fluffy Quilt

(Lower right corner) Toy Tube

Catnip-filled Toys

Trundle bed for cat sleep-over parties