Today I called around to the local hardware stores to find out if they sell "sisal" rope -- the rope that is what cat's scratching posts are made of.
After a pretty funny phone call with Manuel (Faulty Towers style) from Home Depot, I discovered that they do indeed sell it -- for $6.44 (a 50ft. coil) -- Lowe's would have been cheaper ($5.97 per 50ft. coil) but we have to get rid of this Home Depot gift card, and that was enough to take care of it!
Andy and I had my parents over for dinner tonight (another funny story about purchasing "partially frozen" shrimp at Sam's club and then learning that I can't re-freeze it -- so had to come up with a different dinner plan!! it was actually delicious) -- anyhoo -- after my folks left at 8:45, we decided to tackle the cat stand re-sisaling.
I had purchased some roofing nails to attach the sisal with, and began by attaching the end and wrapping it from the bottom upwards. We discovered that 50 feet is just shy of what you need to cover the particular stand that we have -- so we re-used some of the old sisal that was in decent shape. Hindsight being the wonderful thing that it is -- we realized that we should have begun with the new sisal at the top of the stand and then finished with the older sisal at the bottom (because of the way the cats stand and scratch, the top half of the post is always taking the worst of the beating). Nevermind... I'm sure there will be other re-sisaling of this stand... and if not, then we'll be building our own stands next time -- no more pre-made, el cheapo, $50 cat scratching stands for us!!!!
GO us!!
The funniest part was when the stand was done and the mess cleaned up, we called the cats over and they all immediately went at the stand vigorously -- they obviously have missed it!! Frankie and Winston especially -- they were very very very happy to have the stand back!
Posted by kristen at November 11, 2006 2:20 AM