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Decorative Wood Cat Litter Box

5/19/2014

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If you have decent wood working skills, this project will take a long weekend to complete (about 3-4 days).
My wife and I did not like the choices for this style of cat litter enclosure online, so I built this one myself.
This build will allow for a pretty big cat litter box.

Materials (Home Depot or Lowe's):
  • 6 nice wood boards to your liking, suggest 2 pieces at least 36" in x 72" to cut
  •       Top: 22" x 27"
  •       Front/back: 17.75" wide x 22.00" high (2 pieces)
  •       Sides: 23.25" long x 22.00" high (2 pieces)
  •       Bottom: 23.00" long x 19.00" width (note - for ease, this fits within the 1.5" post corners and not trimmed to fit        them tight)
  • 12 pieces 3/4" mold trim to your liking, optional for decoration, suggest 2 pieces, 10 feet long each to cut
  •       Front/back/sides verticals: 21.25" high (8 pieces)
  •       Front/back bottoms: 17.75" width (2 pieces)
  •       Side bottoms: 23.25" width (2 pieces)
  • 4 pieces 1.5" x 1.5" wood stock for corners, suggest 1 piece, 8 feet long to cut
  •       Cut all 4 pieces to 22.75" long
  • 2 rolls plastic (almost rubber) cabinet liner
  • Furniture floor protectors (hard plastic or fuzzy)
  • Table / hand saw
  • Scroll / hand saw
  • Hand sander, 1/4 sheet
  • Staple / finishing gun - really helps a lot
  • Screws, finishing nails, staples
  • Wood varnish to your liking
  • Polyurethane


Assembly Summary:
  • Cut 6 pieces for front, back, sides, top and bottom using hand/table saw
  • Cut out the "cat hold" in the front piece
  •       Measure out hole using pencil - 9.00" width x 9.25" high centered on the piece and about 2" from bottom
  •       Drill 1/2" - 3/4" hole in one of the corners and use scroll or hand saw to cut out square hole
  •       Using a piece of scrap wood, cut out the "half moon" using hand saw, the piece is about 4.5" radius, nail or screw to front above cat hole
  • Cut 4 pieces of corners using 1.5" x 1.5"
  • Create the basic box frame by assembling front, back, sides to corner stock using wood screws, for ease, I just drilled holes thru the corner stock into each wood piece and screwed them together.  I used 2 screws on each side and counter-sunk each one.  But you could also use corner brackets and screw the corners together from the inside.
  • Screw in the bottom to fix within the bottom box frame.  Again, for ease, I used a bottom dimension that just simply fit within the bottom inside of the 4 corner posts (leaving a small gap front and back of the bottom frame).  I also thought doing this would make it easy to broom out litter that spills onto the bottom.
  • Cut to size the trim pieces for the front, back and side verticals and nail them onto the box frame using finishing nails, fit them flush with top edge
  •        For the front, nail the 2 trim verticals so that it just sits very slightly inside the cat hole vertical edges (so it looks a little nicer)
  •        Cut to size 2 more pieces of trim for the front, 1 horizontal piece above and below the cat hole
  • Cut to size the trim pieces for the front, back and side bottoms and nail them onto the box frame using finishing nails
  • For ease, I just press fit the top onto the box frame - it's easy to take it off and put back on for litter cleanings
  •       Using scrap wood, cut 4 pieces approx. 6" long x 1.5" wide
  •       Attach to underneath of top using 2 screws for each piece.
  •       For press fit to work, each piece needs to be 1.5" from the edge of each side of the top, also center each piece horizontally on the top
  • Varnish the entire box, 2 - 3 coats
  • Apply polyurethane, 2-3 coats
  • Cut out and staple cabinet liner to inside of box, go up the sides about half way and overlap - to protect against cat urine and litter
  • Apply 4 floor protectors on the bottom of each corner post
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    Steve Uhl

    Welcome to my projects blog! I like to make and tinker with a lot of different ideas.  I like to use Adobe Illustrator / Photoshop, my Die Cutting machines (Silhouette Portrait and Cricut Explore), my 3D Printer and my garage workshop to build my projects.

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