A tour of the kitten room at Casa de Gato

With the kittens sleeping off their latest round of mayhem, let me introduce you to the kitten room.

When the house was built it was built with a 'sun room' that is on both the upper and lower levels of the house. The upstairs one has a deck on both sides of it and sliding glass doors on both sides. The picture above is from the original house plans. The house was built for someone else so the plans differ from what we ended up with, but the dimensions are what they are. It is a 14-foot square room with the corners on one side 'cut off' to make it an odd six-sided room. Upstairs where the corners were 'cut off' there are windows. Downstairs, where the kitten room is, the window wall on the left side is up against a retaining wall and dirt, so there is no window there... It is where we hung the TV. (see photos below)

I seriously wish I could have running water in this room, but being the basement we can't have a sink that drains into the existing pipe work without a serious financial commitment, so no running water. We also only have one small section of forced hot water heater that runs when the heat runs in the upstairs great room, so this room tends to get cold in the winter, so I have a small portable heater in the room as well.

This is the wall we put up when we decided to make this area the kitten room. The drywall was in because it was going to be a musical practice area for the person who was going to buy this house (the financing fell through, so we are the first owners of this home).  This was open to the rest of the basement, so a wall was necessary. I found the window on the side of the road and brought it home so I could look into the room without opening the door. There have been a number of times I have been very thankful for this window. It is very helpful for distracting kittens intent on escaping from the room. The MeShare camera is on the wall there and the wall outlet it is plugged into is on the outside of the room.  Currently, my drop camera is on the arm of that futon facing Happy Bear and generally, it is on the far side of the room and it probably will be again soon.

This is the wall to the right of the door. This is the wall with the baseboard heating unit. Sometimes the futon is up against this wall, but with the addition of the wardrobe I was afraid of mother cats jumping from the couch to the ceiling joists, because (so far) we haven't put a ceiling in this room. The window points out to under the deck, which we recently semi-enclosed to store the wood pellets we use to heat.

The wardrobe is from Ikea, and is parked in front of the middle window. I don't like it there, but wall space is at a premium in this room. I have been tempted to put it free standing in the middle of the room but the side up against a wall, creating a space behind it for litter boxes, but I'm slightly afraid to do that on the off chance it falls over. I can screw it into the wall where it is, and I'm sure I could screw it into the wall on one side only, but I'm still afraid, so I haven't yet. On top, I store (in the green bucket) puppy pee pads and a few other random things, my small kitten carrier, the basket that I like to use for nursing mothers, and the laundry basket.  I'll address what is inside it in a minute. In between the wardrobe and the cage is a blue bin for recycling cat food cans.

In front of the third window, I keep the cage. I don't like it here, I wish there was more floor space in this room so I didn't have to, but there isn't so I do. I use the cage for kittens that are too small to be out in the entire room (when they don't have a mother) and feral kittens that need taming.

Here is the other wall (that has a window on it upstairs) that has the TV. We have also had it on the far left side of this wall before but putting it here allows us to sit on the futon and watch TV. Sometimes you need to ignore kittens to let them work up the courage to investigate you.

Under the TV is the trash bin, and the blue bin next to it is storage for litter. I like to bring home several boxes at a time, and emptying them out and putting it in the storage bin allows me to mix in less desirable litter with better options so I don't end up with only less than desirable litter. Also, this way my foster room doesn't look like an advertisement for any particular brand of litter.

To the left of the bin is my litter box box.  We made this years ago when we wanted to put a litter box upstairs in our previous house because our oldest cat had arthritis. There is no back on it to make it easy and less confining. We remade it last year so the base is easier to clean and so it can be a photo studio.

When you lift the padded top, there is a board there so I can put kittens and props on it. I bought a few large pieces of fabric to cover it to make it look a bit more professional. And when you lift up that board, there are litter boxes.. 

there is enough room for two boxes in the box, and then we extended the sides so we can put a third box in the back if need be.  When I have six kittens, I definitely need. Right now that third box is outside of the box near the futon because the current batch of kittens is using that area. In a week or so I plan on moving it in here to contain the litter spillage.  Kittens LOVE to play in litter and spread it around. Containing the boxes in this box keeps that down a bit.

And that concludes the tour around the room, as just to the left of the box is the futon couch again. On to the cabinet.

On the right side is a single door. Here I keep the food, bowls, extra water, paper towels, and day to day supplements or medications needed for the kittens. I keep a little extra space for dishing out the food. I keep towels for bedding when needed, the baby scale for weighing kittens, and the bottom usually has blankets in it, but I was using it for some extra food I had.

On the double side, I bought a hanging sweater organizer and a plastic chest of drawers so I could store the little things. The organizer holds face cloths, small hand towels, small blankets for bedding and more towels. the bottom bucket holds new and unused toys. On top of the plastic bins I keep a plastic bag filled with plastic bags for scooping litter.  In the bins are various bits of hardware and software necessary for fostering and upkeep of the room.  Some tape and scissors, etc. I keep medications and supplements in another drawer, random things like glucometers that I've used for caring for diabetic cats are in there. One draw has some old props that I intend to try to use again. The last drawer has trash bags for trash and recycling.  You can see a bit of a nursing scrub top I have in there when I have sick kittens and I want to try to keep contamination down to a minimum... also helps when I have very messy orphaned kittens.  Hanging up on the rod are a few sweaters I used for Charlotte in the past and I occasionally stick on kittens for fun (and socialization) 

Well, it looks like the kittens are up.. Time to play!