The Clueless Cat Owner: 18 Hours and Counting! The Final Set-Up...

This is it! Tomorrow night at this time there will be a new furry baby in my life! Of course, I do still have a graduation ceremony to sit through tomorrow morning first, which means that tonight is my last opportunity to get things set up. The exception to this is food; I won't be putting that out until right before I leave to pick her up. But things like litter and final kitten-proofing have to be accomplished tonight.

I think I have a pretty good set-up going here. I'm following the advice of at least a dozen pet care websites detailing how a kitten's "safe-room" should be prepared.

The first section of my bedroom houses one of two scratchers, the carrier, and the dining setup. Eventually, the dining setup will probably be relocated to our kitchen once we allow the cat to have the run of the house throughout the day. (Don't ask me how I plan to go about doing that-we'll cross that bridge when we get there). For now, she'll eat in here.

Underneath the desk is a 3-drawer plastic chest that used to hold my hairbrushes, lotions, etc, (Yes, I cleaned it before putting the cat stuff in there.) The middle drawer holds all of the smaller, stuffed toys and balls.

The bottom drawer holds grooming supplies, harnesses, and leashes.

Alongside the desk are two new ClosetMaid shelving units stacked on top of one another. The bottom one has a door, while the top is just open shelving. On the top shelves are the litter scoops, waste bags, litter deodorizer, lint rollers, and deterrents (both spray and Sticky Paws)

I decided to keep her food and litter in the unit with a closing door. I don't want her getting into either one while I'm away.

I ran across a problem, however, when I went to fill the litter box. I opened my box of liners to discover that we purchased the wrong size. Our boxes are nowhere near big enough for these "jumbo" liners to fit snugly. In fact, the entire box fit inside the liner-I could have tied it inside the bag.

Being the creative problem solver that I am, I devised a temporary solution. Since we bought two identical boxes that sit inside each other perfectly, I simply tucked the liner inside the second box to hold it in place. When we eventually let the cat downstairs and require a second litter box, I'll pop over to Petco or somewhere else and pick up two more litter pans to accomplish the same goal. This way, we can avoid throwing out the liners and we have spare litter boxes.