There’s a world of fluffy, cutesy-poo cat gear out there. The best cat furniture is designed to blend in with your home and look pleasing to the average person, so it tends to be neutral in style. But what if you are not a fan of cream and beige?
From Scooby Doo to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, my youngest daughter has always been into spooky stuff. She campaigned for a third cat for a solid year before we cracked and welcomed Rocket into the family. As her cat, he lives in her bedroom, so we had to get a bunch of new gear for him. Browsing through the options online, she was disappointed by how dull and samey everything was. But then we discovered Happy & Polly’s Gothic range, which will delight fans of Halloween.
Eternal Night
The Happy & Polly Gothic Style Cat Tree is around three and a half feet tall with a plush cat bed up top, a couple of coffin-shaped platforms, and several cat scratching posts. The wide base is around 2.25 feet across at its widest, is finished with black wood veneer, and keeps the whole edifice stable. The coffin interiors provide a contrasting color to the black. We went for the classic red, but you can also go for purple, rose, or green. The final touch is a couple of dangly toys in the shape of hanging bats on elastic strings.
Rocket didn’t even wait for me to fully assemble the cat tree before he jumped on it and scratched the sisal rope posts. It was easy to assemble and fit nicely in my daughter’s small bedroom. Handily, the plush bed on top fits over a wooden platform, and you can remove it to machine wash. Rocket likes to sleep up top but sometimes lies in the coffin, too.
As a Russian Blue, the Gothic Cat Tree suits him perfectly. Before my daughter settled on Rocket as his name, Vlad was in the running, and he does have a snazzy Dracula cape. While Rocket loves the cat tree, our other two cats have steered clear, seeming to sense that this is his territory.
Photograph: Simon Hill
