Here’s the thing:

• » I live in a cold climate
• » I have an outdoor cat
• » He’s a sissy

What this means is that there is a lot of opening and closing of exterior doors in my apartment. A cat door isn’t really an option since we’re renters (can’t cut holes) and have an open floorplan (no drafts from semi-open windows please!). So instead of bringing the cat inside to warm up I thought I’d install a “cat chalet” on my rear balcony. This would, in theory, allow the cat to spend more time outside, find shelter if he ends up outside for the night/several days, and cut down on plaintive meowing at the window.

For the design itself, I used a two-story re-purposed-election-sign construction (the cat enters at the base and then clambers up to the second floor) in order to trap warm air, igloo-style. I kept the “observation deck” compact (for coziness) by using curves instead of corners. The floor is insulated and (not seen in the photos) has some carpeting and a blanket for warmth.

Does it work? To be honest I haven’t followed through with this project (I still need to install the thing outside and weigh it down a bit) because I stumbled across a much cleverer design in a comment in a random forum once mine was done. Here’s the core of it: Attach an open-backed cat shelter to an exterior window. Heat that would be lost anyways goes instead to warm the cat shelter. Very elegant.

Now what could be quickly repurposed to serve as a window cat chalet…