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Our daughter bought a high-rise condo in a big city several months ago, and she took her five-year-old cat, Mowgli (Kipling's Jungle Book boy) with her. The cat had been an indoor-outdoor roamer, but he is now confined indoors to the condo and its small outdoors balcony high above the street. As a new home gift, we bought our daughter an in-the-wall Murphy bed, something she needed for her one-bedroom home when friends and family come to visit.

We thought it would be appropriate to buy something for the other family member as he gets adjusted to his new home. His problem, of course, is the lack of freedom as he became a strictly indoor cat. Therefore, we decided to buy him his own condo. We'd call it a cathouse, but that would be misunderstood, especially by Mowgli, who is neutered.

There are probably thousands of indoor cat structures around in stores and on the internet, but we found three delightful ones listed under felinefurniture.com. The names alone tell you how much fun they can be: Catty Corner, the Cat Hotel and the Stairway to Cat Heaven. They're all three levels or more, with a jungle jim look, climbing and walking runs, hammocks and an enclosed hut in the middle.

This company also makes accessories and other structural items for various extra prices, so that the homes and runs can be expanded if there are more cats in the family who will share the home. Their basic prices go from less than $200 to about $300. The structures are simple enough for a craftsman to build, and I'd estimate it would take about $50 in materials and eight or ten hours to construct, depending on the complexity.

I don't have a workshop anymore, so we couldn't resist ordering the Stairway to Heaven. When we visited the condo, we could see that Mowgli and his owner are very happy with his new kitty condo.

Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
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