This is the Skiitch modern cat scratching post from the designers at Kassen, and I’m completely in love. Designed in the style of Brutalist architecture, Skiitch is made with roughly angled heavy-duty corrugated cardboard mounted on a sturdy cement base. Measuring 32 inches tall, Skiitch looks like it would really take a beating from the toughest of cats, all the while looking like an incredible piece of modernist sculpture in your living room.
Skiitch will set you back $190, but that includes shipping to the US and Canada, which can’t be inexpensive with a 20 lb. cement base. Cardboard replacements are available separately.
Available from kassenlifestyle.com.
A reader, Barbara, recently purchased a cardboard replacement for the Skiitch and she wanted to share her experience installing the replacement:
“When the new cardboard block arrived, the enclosed instructions said that the cardboard was held onto the concrete by friction alone, and that to remove the old cardboard the concrete base had to be stabilized so it wouldn’t move. Next, the old cardboard had to be wiggled back and forth until it became loose enough to pull off, and then the new cardboard block had to be wiggled back on the same way.
This was clearly beyond the capabilities of one small woman. Here’s how I did it:
First, I laid the Skiitch on its side on a folded towel, to protect our wooden floor. Then I used the blade of a hatchet as a broad wedge to wedge the cardboard loose from the concrete, pulling it off with my hands.
Next, I turned the new cardboard block base-side up, still on the folded towel, and lowered the concrete base into it by hand.
Finally, I laid a copy of Neiman Marcus’s latest catalog over the concrete, to protect it, and tapped it a few times in a small circle with the back of the hatchet, staying well away from where I thought the edges and corners of the concrete were so I wouldn’t chip them. The concrete base seated perfectly! All that was left to do was to right the Skiitch and put it back in its corner.
Any durable broad wedge-shaped object would probably work fine, and be safer than a hatchet; the hatchet was the first thing that came to hand. A narrow wedge, such as a dinner knife or table fork, won’t work because it just bites into the cardboard but doesn’t move it. And you don’t absolutely have to use a Neiman Marcus catalog, either; any reasonably thick magazine would be OK, or even a folded newspaper.
The whole process was much easier and took less time than I had imagined, so I’m passing this along in case anyone with a Skiitch and only two hands is as perplexed as I was.”
I LOVE this and what a great idea for an unupsettable base! (Is that a word? It is now)
I love your stuff