We have been so lucky. She walked out of her carrier, still drugged up from surgery and illness, stared at the scratching post and walked over and used it.

I tested her by hanging grasscloth wallpaper samples of 3x3 feet and she completely ignored them. So the front bedroom is getting grasscloth.

I think the biggest impact to the house is that the kitchen is in the front and it smells faintly like cat food, which I really dislike the smell of. That may be solved when the house is done and she can eat in the basement. (When her tunnel to the basement is done).

I have a couch like that. I love my cats beyond measure tho, so I don't care!

My friend had to leave their cats alone with their new furniture while they travelled for 2 weeks. They spent half a day piling it all in one room where they could keep the cats locked out.

Our "new" sofa is on its way to looking like the one in the pic. Cats.

Who notices the shredded furniture with that zig-zaggy rug in the room? that thing is blinding.

I got new sofas a few months ago, I have only seen them a few times. I had to cover them with sheets as they are catnip to my cat. The 25-year-old sofa in the living room doesn't have a scratch on it. But this fabric seems to scream, "here kitty, kitty, kitty! Come get me!"

Oh my goodness, that is so funny - thanks for the laughs!

P.S. It could easily be the work of just one, you know...

I totally didn't get this. All I could see was that rug and trying to imagine walking through that room with an optical illusion on the floor. I had to read the text to see the shredded furniture. I love cats so much and admire anyone who will overlook their bad behavior, as I always did mine. Cat free now, which is hard, but I finally have furniture with no shred marks. However the hollow core doors with the veneer peeled away by a cat who refused to be kept in a room she wanted out of, still remain.

Yeah, it took me a while to figure it out too. I finally saw the torn up edges of the sofas. That house is filled with older decor so it isn't any great loss. I would hope that anyone looking at real estate would have enough sense to know that the furniture isn't included and what difference should it make. I say really...if it's not some expensive furniture and you have cats, it isn't really that big of a deal to just let them scratch on some old sofa corner.

I wonder if the rug is a quick replacement, it does seem out of place.

There are some other things like the seat of One dining chair seems to be damaged.

These are actually pretty expensive sofas and chairs but at one point I guess they decided to let it go.

Bless 'em. My leather sofa looks almost exactly like that. I've embraced the "distressed" look. I also swore I'd never have cats that jumped up on the counters. (She said, as she gathered her purse and passed through the kitchen, planting a kiss on the fuzzy head of Penny, who sprawled languidly on the island.)

My little jerk is also a master of this. I really want to buy these velvet swivel chairs but I'm trying to decide if spending $2k on scratching posts is a good investment.

Dogs can damage furniture also. Joni Mitchell returned some leather furniture to us that her dogs had ruined, and she paid us to have the furniture reupholstered - and it was not cheap.

I had a hard time getting past the rug in the photos also. I think it would make my dizzy(er).

We bought a few items last year - specifically bought from Room & Board because they have a feature online where you can filter the fabric choices by the usuals (color, type of fabric, etc) but also things like "good for kids" and "cat scratch friendly". The latter had really tight weaves that cats tended not to like. No scratches to date.

This is why I'm glad we don't have cats. The dog on the other hand, as a teethhing puppy. chewed through the base of a wood coffee table. The fact that Room and Board has cat-friendly upholstery now completely makes sense.

I think the rug might be intentional -- the throw pillows sort-of coordinate.

I loved my cats dearly, but I DID mind. When attrition took it's final toll on my cats, I vowed to enjoy DD's and not get another. She has 3 and they have done a lot of damage on 1 sofa and 1 chair.

Much as I love cats I wouldn't tolerate a situation like that.

I have cats. When I worry about them, they go down to the basement, which has a lot to entertain them therein.

I also assume the furniture doesn't convey.

Dog slobber doesn't appeal much, either.

DH swore we would never have a cat because they would destroy the furniture. A stray cat wandered into our yard, and then into our house and finally into our hearts. DH now says the furniture doesn't matter. (Fortunately we have very little damage)

I recently gave this book to a cat loving friend.

I always swore I'd never put up with an animal that ruined my furniture. Yeah....big talk. My newest rescue dog ate the side of a leather chair. Sigh....

I have pretty much given up trying to protect my sofa. My cat has a very thick coat of fur and isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. I used to try spraying him with a water bottle when he scratched the sofa. He would just sit there looking at me and after a while, start to drink the water.

I have accepted that I will never have a nice couch. Now, I just let him do what he going to do and periodically buy a couch at local estate sales to replace whichever one my cat has ruined.

I'm done with cats. No dogs either (eek). Besides the mess in the house, I no longer care to be tied down to something that needs boarding when I want to get up and take off for a few days. I loved my cats in the past, but now I am happier without.

That’s why I always recommend this Sofa scratcher. It works. A sofa is just too tempting to a cat. They’re the right height, the nubby fabric feels good on the claws. Better to protect and to get the scratcher to where the cat wants to scratch.

I don't think I could handle not having my cats. I don't have many things that I value above my cats-and certainly not a couple couches. People who would be horrified at a scratched part of my couch or look down on me for it are not the type of people I would have anything to do with. Buuut that's just me..I'm perfectly (purrfectly haha) content with my cats, my books, and my flowers.

@Missi Rogge: I agree. I decided that I could have a nice couch or I could have cats, but I could not have both. I chose the cats. Everyone has their priorities and that is fine, but to me, my cat brings me far more joy than a nice-looking couch.

I like the rug in there!!!

I love my house and my furnishings, but in my world there is no substitute for the unconditional affection of furbabies. Nothing even comes close.

ETA: This little pooper is so darn cute, but he also just knocked a favorite lamp to the floor, so mama's less than pleased at the moment. Still ... I wouldn't want to be without him. I'd miss this face.

sloedjinn, those corner scratchers are brilliant. I can't afford the six I'd need ($80 each with shipping), but I think I should be able to make something similar. In the meantime, off to trim nails.

You know, I thought I would need four, one for each corner of my sofa (It’s a nubby, loose fabric that cats love), but thought I would try just one first, to see how it went. It turns out I only need the one. I put it at the most convenient (for my cat) corner of the sofa and now she only uses the scratcher. Once she figured out she wouldn’t get scolded for using that corner and that there was plenty of catnip involved (I regularly refresh the catnip on the scratcher and vicinity. She is very ‘nip motivated), she got the picture and the rest of the corners and all my other furniture has been safe.

If you have multiple cats, maybe you might need more because scratching is also a kind of territorial marking, so I’d probably do at least one per cat. Maybe do something like Clear protectors on the other corners? They’re a lot cheaper.

I think one of the mistakes people make with scratchers is they buy one, then stick it in some out of the way corner, which makes the furniture so much more convenient and attractive. That’s why the corner scratcher is so brilliant. Its low profile, but can go right over an area that was proven to be an attractive place to scratch.

1.3M house and they're too cheap to replace the furniture? Makes me wonder what else they didn't keep up with in the house.

Years ago when we were looking for our second house, back in the days when the realtor would drive you all over to showings, we walked into one house and there was cat shi*t all over the kitchen counter. Um yea...PASS. My realtor was FURIOUS and gave the listing realtor quite an earful later in the day, from what I was told.

I don't think it's that they are too cheap to replace the furniture, I think the house is probably an estate and at some point the cosmetic appearance of a few sofas was not that important any more to the people who lived there.

My parents house was last redecorated in the 1980s except for a few replacement things, but my dad put on a new roof (even though the existing one had a few years left), repaired some cracked sidewalk, had an arborist in, and replaced the refrigerator all in the last couple of years that he owned the house, which was until he was almost 91 in 2015.

Mxk3 - that situation is one reason we moved to our new house before we put our old one on the market. Not that my cats poop outside the litter box but I had this vision of someone coming to look at the place and being greeted in the foyer by a puked up hairball. I was also concerned someone would shut them in a closet or one would get outside, etc.

I would never choose furniture over my cats either but I would find a way to prevent all my furniture from being shredded. Among other things I’ve adopted front declawed cats that some fools allowed to go outside and end up at shelters. They still manage to do some furniture damage with their back claws but nothing is shredded to pieces.

Recently on FB someone shared a photo of a lovely but deteriorated house that sold for a song in a nice neighborhood. The poster made some derogatory comments about the condition of the house and speculated about the previous owners.

Well, because of FB connections, the owner's daughter, a friend of mine, saw the post. And she calmly commented on the post about her parent's terrible health issues, dementia and their deaths within a few days of each other.

This house is no where near as bad as the FB house but as Pal noted people's priorities often change.

1.3M is not a song - not in my neck of the woods anyway. At the least, the realtor should have insisted the furniture be removed -- because like I said, would make me wonder what else isn't kept up.

I think expectations really have been altered by design television.

At some point current interior design or fresh furniture and decorating has come to indicate a well maintained house.

While that may be true, it may also be a diversionary staging tactic to draw attention away from the infrastructure. It can make someone take a very shallow look at the actual structure itself.

"At some point current interior design or fresh furniture and decorating has come to indicate a well maintained house."

No, that's not what I'm getting at - decorating is the last thing I look at, who cares about the paint and cr*ppy carpet, it's all going to be re-done how I want it anyway, I can see right past the aesthetics of that.

But, ripped up furniture sends a signal that the house has not been maintained well and gets one thinking that other $$$ issues may be afoot, as can a dirty house. It may be the case, and it may not be, but the seed is planted if I see things in disrepair or really dirty (I don't mean old or outdated, I mean dirty). It has nothing to do with decorating. Sure I can replace the busted up baseboards (or whatever, that's just an example), that's a cheap fix - but what else is going on with the house that is going to cost $$$ to fix, did they keep up with systems maintenance, etc.

But I don't think the house in general gives the impression of being at all dirty or in disrepair.

To me, it looks like a well-maintained house with some ripped up sofa arms. If they were younger, maybe they got the sofa redone every few years. The small white sofa with the knobs and tassels is a Knole-style sofa which is uncommon in the US, and the last time I looked at Chairish, a George Smith knole sofa (in good condition) sold used for $8000. Maybe the family doesn't want to get rid of the furniture because it's all worth reupholsering...I also remember seeing a spread in a magazine some time ago where there was a comment about cat-clawed furniture despite the fact some of the fabrics were hundreds of dollars a yard. The homeowner called it patina.

I am not disagreeing that this makes an odd impression--that's why I am posting it--but to me it is something that stands out as an anomaly, in a nice house. A typical staging quality sofa would also stand out as an anomaly in that house as well, and perhaps the $1.3 price tag on this does not warrant spending a lot on staging. I don't remember but it may be a reasonable price in the area.

I'd look at the torn arms and giggle. Cats!

If the place didn't stink like cat pee, it wouldn't concern me a bit...unless they were including the cats in the sale. I'm clever enough to see if the place is run down. This doesn't look run down (only looking at the images presented here). It looks like a really nice place with bad cats.

I have seen too many people look at what I call "the pretties" and think that they do not have to look beyond that. Then when the reports show all of the problems that were evident just by doing a walk through plus more the people were astounded that the Perfect House was not so perfect. People today seem to take things more at face value and do not look further. I think it is the effect of the various tv shows as some of the worst are ones done by flippers.

Just wanted to post a pic of my make shift sofa corner scratchers. I used 2 of the school presentation backboards that they sell at the dollar store and cut them in half. They worked better than plain cardboard because the corner is already formed. I covered the back ones in burlap (also from dollar store) and stuck them on with wide strips of double sided tape. The front ones aren't stuck on so we can move them quickly when guests come. So far, so good - but wish I'd done it earlier as the (new) sofa is already pretty tattered.

I now have three (new one is now 5 months old) cats and none of my furniture is shredded. If owners would provide at least 2 tall scratching posts, then cats would learn to use them instead of destroying furniture. I have one post placed near the end of a sofa (for the kitten) and the other post is in the corner of the dining room. The cats walk right past the DR area often and they always stop there to sharpen their claws. Cat towers with sisal-wrapped posts also give the cats a good scratching area.

I believe cat owners can have both nice furniture and happy cats, but in order to achieve this cats need their own furniture such as towers and scratch posts. Here's my favorite post, and this one is mysecond favorite.

Our cat had scratching posts and never did the furniture. Unless she was p!ssed off at us, and then she did it just for spite, you could see her do a "scratch and run" . . .

Yes, our cat will scratch to manipulate, it's kinda like she makes eye contact and plucks and then runs off. But her ultimate manipulation in the morning is to climb up on the headboard and pull one of our phone cords into her mouth and start chewing. (We have outlets and a spot specifically for phones on each side of the beds.) She knows a phone cord in the mouth will get somebody to jump out of bed immediately.

Geez. I don't love animals enough to put up with that crap. I had a son - that was trying enough, LOL.

" At some point current interior design or fresh furniture and decorating has come to indicate a well maintained house.

While that may be true, it may also be a diversionary staging tactic to draw attention away from the infrastructure"

I once surprised a boyfriend (myself, too) when he commented that new tires on a used car was a bonus. Something clicked in my head, and I said, "Unless the frame is bent."