What happens when the owner of a custom building firm decides to Catify his own home? Well, the possibilities are endless! This is the home of Peter Cohen, owner of Trillium Enterprises in Santa Barbara, California. Everywhere you look he’s added catwalks, climbing poles, tunnels and other features to accommodate his 18 indoor cats. I wonder if they know how lucky they are?
The extensive walkways running throughout the house are fully integrated into the architecture — a major undertaking with a price tag to match (between $30,000 and $40,000 total for all of the Catification features). I asked Peter about adapting the ideas for smaller budgets. He replied “I think the ideas translate well to any level of construction, from the way I have built mine (banded edges and invisible bolts) to inexpensive shelves held up with right angle brackets.” Some of the more complicated pieces, like the spiral ramp shown above, would be more challenging to recreate on a budget. The ramp was made over many months by laminating strips of wood around a large cardboard tube.
In addition to the walkways, the house includes a network of tunnels allowing cats to travel from room to room and out to the garage where some of the litter boxes are kept. I’m glad to hear that they kept safety in mind when creating the tunnels and walkways. “We never build an area they can get to that we cannot,” Peter tells me. That’s the number one rule of Catification! Make every place accessible in case of an emergency and also for cleaning purposes.
The colorful interior is filed with decorative features that make it look like a fantasy land. The cats add the perfect element to the interior landscape.
No special surfaces or paints were used on the walkways and other features, just low/no VOC water based enamel paint that’s easily wiped clean. The upper catwalks are all cleaned periodically with a ladder and the lower surfaces are vacuumed and wiped down weekly.
The cats took to the design features right away. “When we first started building the walkways and tunnels I was worried the cats would not use them, but from day one, they couldn’t wait to get on everything” Peter tells me. He has continued to add features since the original renovation, constantly experimenting with new elements to keep the cats entertained.
In addition to the litter boxes in the garage, some are housed in closets with fans for air circulation. Peter paid special attention to the other important rule of Catification — especially in a multi-cat household — make sure that every area has at least two entrances and exits. This helps avoid ambushes or gatekeeping activity. You don’t want anyone to get trapped!
This is an amazing example of Catification, and it’s also very inspirational. I encourage you to come up with creative budget-conscious ways to add some of these kinds of elements into your own home, even if you don’t own a custom building firm!
To see other work by Peter’s firm, Trillium Enterprises, visit their website trilliumonline.com or check out their profile on Houzz, where you can also read another profile of this project by Houzz editorial staff Mitchell Parker.
I love love love this catification! Gorgeous!!!!!!
Thanks for sharing this Kate. What a fantastic creation and environment for these lucky cats. I think it would be almost a full time job to keep all those litter boxes scooped (at least for how often I scoop), and care for all those plants.
This is beyond awesome!!! Please, people out there who have done cool stuff like this–more sharing with us! It gives some great ideas for our own homes as well as something to dream about/aspire to!
My mind is reeling! There are so many great ideas here. What a beautiful set up!
It’s very beautiful and colorful, and I enjoy the set up completely. On the other hand, do cats see color as we do? Does the color scheme play to their visual senses? Since so much of this home is dedicated to the cats, I can only wonder what their perception of it is. My cats, unfortunately, are just a bit clumsy, and I am sure they would fall off the higher perches–and land on my head. However, so many of the lower tunnels and entrances/exits are just what the kitty would order.
Zapper, The “experts” say cats can’t see colors, but I’m here to say they’re wrong! I have had cats that are drawn to very specific colors. For instance, my sweet Mollie was a girly girl that adored everything pink. Light pink, dark pink, hot pink, etc. She would only play with pink toys, lay on the softest pink blankets, and eat out of the pink bowl. You might think I only had pink in the house, but I didn’t. In fact, at times, I had 9-27 cats in the house (used to be a foster mom) and Mollie owned everything pink. At the same time, my little Pumpkin liked royal blue and medium purple. So… in my experience, cats see/sense colors.
A feast for the eyes and the soul — is this guy married? 😉 WOW. And EIGHTEEN INDOOR CATS. What a wonderful person. The world needs many, many more like him. Some of this design is reminiscent of that in the world-famous CATS’ HOUSE in San Diego, CATifornia, belonging to Bob Walker and Frances Mooney and their furmily. Amazing and gorgeous. Thanks so much for sharing with us!
Beautiful; I designed my cat room after the first one. Now I’ve moved and have more cats new location. Thanks for these pictures. I’m going to add an outside set of small rooms so my cats can be on their own or with others, listening to outside birds, fresh air doing what they want. This gives me new ideas! Many thanks.
This is so well done. I’ve see other homes done and they are cute but this is so well blended into the homes décor. It’s not gaudy. Lucky cats.
This is such a cool thing to fantasize about! I can’t afford to do anything with my little house, but it’s fun to see what other people have done. Those are some very, very lucky cats!!
OMG, it’s cat heaven!!! We are in the processes of re-catifying our house and love all the ideas. This one is especially awesome! Hopefully we can incorporate something similar to this into ours.
This home is one of the most beautiful and creative I’ve ever seen! I love the variety of ideas, colors, and materials used. Must be a huge home to have 18 cats. I’m bookmarking his website. I wonder if Jackson Galaxy knows about this home….
Absolutely fantastic! Such works of art! Such a paradise for cats!
This is a fantastic Catification project, and some of the pics just made me laugh, like the tunnel my the john in the bath. It is so clever and original. Someday I would love to do something similar for my 11 cats, but they do have the upstairs to be away from my 2 dogs. There is a gate at the bottom of the stairs, and they do hang out there also.
You have 11 cats!?!!?! and 2 dogs!?!!? do they even get along with eachother???
It’s gorgeous.. easy to do when you have such a large house and money to spend, though. I’d like to find some ideas on how to catify a normal apartment with a limited budget.. it would need lots of imagination and could lead to many interesting and original solutions.
Wow, this is amazing!!! Wonder if he would be interested in renting out his home for guests?!? What fun!!
I notice that there are plants all over this house. Any ideas what types of plants these might be? I can never keep plants/flowers for fear of curious kitties that love to chew on them (even though they have plenty of kitty grass to chew). Would love to know if these are kitty-friendly varieties (i.e. not poisonous) or if he just has very well-behaved kitties!
I was wondering the same thing. We have 6 cats and 2 have prodigious plant appetites. I can’t keep any kind of plant, not even a cactus! Hopefully all of this greenery is cat-safe and non-poisonous.
This man is every :Crazy Cat Lady’s” dream partner. Where do these guys come from? Obviously I’m not looking in the right places. OK, I’m not looking, but if I was this would be the kind of guy I’d look for.
Love all of cats . I have a poll I want to kno what you use to make tje twirl.
Please could you let me know anything for letting one cat out and let 1 cat stay in because my deaf cat has sussed out the selective cat flap, because she gets out when my other cat goes near with collar. Only the cat what is allowed out has collar.
I wish all the people who have pets treat their pets like Mr. Cohen, he sets an example of love and dedication to his cats, I love my cats and the streets cats I feed so deeply that if I could afford to transfer my house to host the 50 streets cats I feed I would not hesitate for a second, imagine if one can still have a beautiful, and clean cats full house, for me this would be a paradise. Mille fois Bravo to Mr Peter Cohen and the creative designer.
Nice to see so much color incorporated into his design. Considering that cats don’t see colors as sharply as we do* (and that many hues aren’t seen at all), it seems important to try to make things jazzier if you don’t want them to fall when jumping around (ie: beige stairs might blend really easily with white/red/any color but bright blue/green/purple walls?) leading to possible injury?
Wonderful; Mr. Cohen is living my dream.
I wish I can afford a house like this paradise for my 10 cats and the 44 homeless cats I feed daily.
Cats should be able to roam free and live the life they were created for.
The old Egyptians did not worship the cats just because they are beautiful creatures, they worshiped them because man can’t survive without the cat, the diseases created by rodents over population, and insects harms to the farms would have threatened humanity health and economy. The WHO in their conference on Plague back on 2006 listed China, US East and West coasts, beside Australia on the red map for Plague. We have recently seen China impose a quarantine on the Northern region for Plague cases. Bill Gates finance a study by Dr.Daniel at UCF to find affordable vaccine for Plague, yet, animal services kills free roaming cats on daily basis to turn our streets into safe heavens for rodents, locust, insects, and corporations as usual fill the void by selling poison to exterminate the beasts, unfortunately, or fortunately, the rodents and insects are building immunity to the poison and growing up in size; eventually no army of cats will be able to stop an invasion of billions of immune enemy. May the Lord bless the cats and their lovers.
I LOVE YOUR CAT TREES. ESPECIALLY THE LIGHTER WEIGHT ONE.
IM GOING TO ORDER THE STARTER SET.