Project Litter Box

One of the challenges of having a cat in a small apartment is the location of the litter box. In my current situation, I really only had one option - the floor underneath some built-in shelves in my bathroom. Mostly it's a fine solution, but I have to confess that while I'm soaking in the bathtub the last thing I want to see is the cat doing his business. And when company comes, especially young children, I wanted to be able to "hide" the box while still allowing Wilbert access to it (for all the obvious reasons).

After living here 5 months, this afternoon I finally got around to making a little curtain. I used a small tension rod and one yard of ridiculously cute bird fabric* - which I had bought just because it was so cute. This literally took half an hour to sew up. All you need to do is cut off the selvedges and square up the fabric, then hem the sides, the top, and then finally the bottom. I sewed another seam in the top hem so there is a sleeve to put the tension rod through, which gives the top a bit of a ruffle. In this case one yard was perfect in both length and width. I wasn't exactly particular about my hemming, either - I used the iron to double-fold the edges and then just sort of eyeballed the seams. I mean really, the cat will be the only thing really looking at it...but if you are a bit more detail-oriented, it would have taken another whole 10 minutes to be really accurate about the hemming. And, voila:

I'll leave it half-open for awhile, 'til the cat gets used to it. Those fake flowers on the right? Those would be what he kept knocking off the back of the toilet seat. (Not to be outdone, I got up yesterday morning and found an entire, brand-new roll of toilet paper in the bowl...clearly, the cat has declared the top of the tank an "item free" zone.)

*Fabric is the "Starling" print by Alexander Henry