Art Deco Theater Inspired Pet Bed

Our family loves to take in a good movie from home. So when our new home included a screening room, we found ourselves making any excuse to use it. Our cats love this too, its one of the few times we are all in the same room and sitting still for long periods of time, perfect for cats. They get a lot of snuggles in and we get to enjoy the theater experience at home, with our pets. While our youngest cat enjoys lots of close cuddle time, our oldest prefers to be in the same room while maintaining a, mature, distance. We wanted a space for all the cats, so we tried some of those corrugated cardboard pet houses you can find in most pet isles. Lets just say, they look a lot better on the box. After all, you are buying just a box with cute cat themed prints on them. I know I can do better. So, when the second one fell apart, I decided to take matters into my own hands, and shop.

I wanted to make a house for the cats that could be both a bed and a scratcher. We noticed that with the all cardboard houses, the cats would only use the lower section(probably due to stability), they would both scratch and sleep on the scratcher pad. One thing we have come to accept about cats is that they like to use our furniture for scratches, we don't like it this much. I'm not gonna lie, this was a major motivation to build them something for this room. If I could direct that energy away from our expensive media room chairs and towards something designed to take that kind of abuse, it would pay off greatly. With that in mind, I designed the new scratcher around some refillable corrugated cardboard inserts I found on Amazon. It wasn't until after building the scratcher, I realized it could be quite versatile. By simply inserting some ridged flooring(thick cardboard or scrap MDF), I could turn one or both of the scratching platforms into a bed for cat lounging. This winter I plan to place some cozy bedding in the lower section for them.

Do you call it a media room or a screening room? This one gets debated in our house, I think I prefer screening room. Since this cat scratcher is going in our screening room, I wanted to make it fit the theme of a classic theater. I wanted something that was distinctly classic movie theater, but for a cat. I remembered being a child, my summers spent in that small, north Missouri town. One of my favorite things was the summer movie program at the local theater. The Ben Bolt was a classic Art Deco(maybe Art Moderne?) theater that sat just off the town square. Every summer I could by a two week pass that got me unlimited access to, two, morning showings of older films. This is where I got to watch classics like The Creature From the Black Lagoon, Ghostbusters, An American Tail and The Never Ending Story on the big screen. They even had movies that were just a couple years old(for the time) like Hook, The Sandlot, The Flintstones(1994) and Jumanji. These are some of my core memories. When I designed the cat scratcher, I was working completely from these memories. Unfortunately, the theater was shutdown before my last summer there in 1999 and torn down later that year, so my memories are 20+ years old. In writing this, I found an article that talks about the old Ben Bolt, if you would like to know more. Reading about The Ben Bolt sent a flood of nostalgic memories over my cerebral cortex. I realize now, my design doesn't exactly match the theater, just my memory of it. I still look at this scratcher and see the Ben Bolt and those happy memories.

Is it a scratcher or a house? I guess it's more of a pet house, with a scratching feature. I kept the design simple, a box really with some trim. The box would step out a few inches on the face with a wide opening for access to the bottom. The trim would be just a classic step up to a thicker trim that acted as the cap on top as well as the footer on the base. Broken up only by the marquee on the front, the trim wraps completely around. I put all the detail work into the marquee, the part that literally and figuratively stood out as the defining feature. A simple tall column stretching across the profile, with some angled signage near its base. All of this would be built from a single, half sheet(4'x4') of 1/2" MDF. I wanted a neutral color, one that you might find used on a stucco building of the time. I found a can of some tannish paint and decided to use that. Originally, I was going to keep the whole thing neutral and make the marquee white with silver accents. However, when I was going through my spray paints, looking for accent colors, I found a Paprika that I just had to use. It really makes the lettering of the marquee stand out. Funnily enough, I picked a champagne gold to use for the marquee outline. the can was near its end and the label had been removed, but the gold cap remained, so gold, right? I went to apply this "gold" to a test piece and discovered it was indeed silver. I debated going out to get a gold spray can. Ultimately decided that it would be to much yellow base with the tan color of the main body on another yellow base color, gold. The silver snuck back in and really worked to distinguish the marquee. I printed the marquee lettering on plain paper, cut them out and using contact cement, glued them to the faces. As a final touch, I applied a clear coat on the marquee, to lock the prints in. Oddly enough, the clear coat took some of the shine out of the silver, giving it a tarnished look that kind of works.

My cats seem to like the new house. Perhaps that was a bit modest, they love it. I brought it into the living room first and set it next to another house I built them. They went right into explore mode. I found my two boys that night, laying on opposite cat houses, facing each other. As if they fell asleep looking at each other, admiring how good hey have it. The next day, I moved the new unit up to the screening room and we had a family movie night. The cats took turns snuggling with us and sleeping in their new house, they rotated all night. I have to admit, I'm just as obsessed with these are they are. I have plans to make one themed for our game room and bed room next.

I always amaze myself when I look back at the original designs I created in Fusion 360 and compare to the final product. It just blows me away when they look exactly that same. To take a piece of digital art and manifest it into reality, is nothing short of amazing. If you would like to make one of these yourself, DIY plans can be found on my Etsy shop, including past and future designs. Please support me here and check back for future updates.