The litter box hack

So we did this in Boston and it worked well. We changed a piece of furniture so that it could hold litter boxes which helped contain the mess from our litter flingers. After we flooded the first time, we had a different solution which was perfect (purrfect?).

In the apartment we rented when we first moved back to Kansas, we just put the litter boxes in a closet. It happened to be in the same room as our office and things got a bit dusty from the flingers and from scooping. So we decided to do another litter box hack and here's what we came up with.

First, we bought a Simon sideboard from Pier 1. We had already checked the interior dimensions and knew our litter boxes would fit in there, if a bit snugly.

Next, I bought a roll of black wrapping paper and lined the glass in the doors with the black side of the paper facing out into the room. Hey, no one wants to look at cats pooping, right? Last time, I used scrapbook paper but the glass on the inside of the new sideboard is much bigger than 12" x 12" so I used wrapping paper. If you look carefully at the final picture, you can see that the wrapping paper isn't really matte. But that's OK, it still gets the job done.

In the meantime, Kent took the back off the sideboard and removed the center back post. It's there for stability, but the litter boxes aren't that heavy and only one cat ever goes in there at a time even though theoretically we could have two using them at once.

Finally, you'll notice there's a bit of orange peeping out from under the sideboard. That's the temporary rug to help the flingers' litter not get tracked throughout the house. I will find one that's less visible; a job for another day.

Scooping is a matter of opening a door, pulling out the litter box, scooping and then putting it back again. A small whisk broom takes care of interior flung litter and a regular broom gets under the sideboard.

With the doors closed

One door is open