DIY | Hidden Litter Box

Hi friends, welcome to my new blog. I have decided to give a blog on lifestyle and organization another shot so here it is!

To start this new blog, I'd like to share with you my latest DIY project. If you're my friends or follow me on instagram, you'd probably know that my husband, A and I rescued a kitten, named Limau a couple of weeks ago and decided to adopt it. Truth to be told, we had zero idea how to raise a cat! But after a lot of reading and googling, we pretty much adapted to having an accidental cat living with us, and we're glad it happened. He brought us so much joy and new things to learn!

Little ball of destroyer

One of the new things I have to learn is to seamlessly blend the kitten's items into our household. Also, THAT CATS NEED PRIVACY WHEN DOING THEIR BUSINESS. We learnt this the hard way after he peed behind our TV console. So, we needed a litter box in the living room since Limau spends most of his time there. But I didn't want the litter box to be an eyesore, because we live in quite a small house, so everything is laid out in the same floor! So after going through pinterest, I found just the right idea!

I remembered my mom had an old and now ugly wicker chest she desperately wanted to get rid of. I drove to Selayang and picked it up and started my plan.

The wicker chest in all its "glory"

Comes with a broken handle

First thing I did was to clean the whole thing. It was dusty as heck and somehow there were pieces of playdoh stuck on the top part (???).

After the whole playdoh nightmare was gone, it was time to add a little door for Limau the cat to enter. the measurement of my door is 15cm (h) x 14.5 cm (w), supposedly this matches with a medium size cat flap door. In case we decide to add the flap door later, it will be a breeze.

Using a wire cutter, I just cut through the wicker based on the measurements i did. Then, I sanded the edges with 180 grit sandpaper to smoothen them.

I cut the handles first

As the wicker chest is in golden, aged, dingy color, I decided to give it a nice coat of paint. The color I chose was warm gray to match the rest of my decor. I discovered chalk paint and decided that to try it. ( I homemade the paint *wink* ) It was so easy and looked amazing! I will share with you how you can do the same in the next post.

See the difference?

Two coats of paint and a protective sealer afterwards, the chest was ready to be used! I didn't paint the insides but you can do so if you wish!

I love this color!

As for arrangement, I laid down a huge paper at the bottom to catch litter sand, and topped it off with a rug to avoid litter tracking outside the box. We add some newspapers and Thirsty Hippo to combat the odor. So far, this litter box is doing great in catching the litter and basically hide the unsightly yet necessary "cat toilet" from view!

So that's it. It's a pretty simple DIY and you don't have to see the litter box in the open everyday! Plus, by using wicker, your cat can still observe the outside perimeter while giving him the privacy he needs. So it's a win-win. I hope this is helpful to you and will give you ideas how to hide those litter boxes.

Have a good day!