Reuse an Old Sweater to Make a Copper Pipe Bed

by Michelle Leslie

I have an old sweater that’s definitely seen better day, but our cats love cuddling on it and I couldn’t bear to throw it out. Have you ever had a house full of depressed cats? It’s not pleasant. To keep our fur babies happy, the sweater has to stay. We decided to reuse that old sweater and make the kitties a real cuddle, snuggle bed using some copper bits. Copper is in now right?

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To make the copper bed we used 4 copper T-pieces, 4 copper elbows, a copper pipe and the cuddly old sweater. If you don’t have an old sweater, you can use any kind of material that’s soft and kitty friendly.

We measured the length of the biggest kitty, excluding the tail, and add 5 cm (about 2″ for my American friends). Merlin is our big boy and is just over 37 cm long so we cut two pieces of copper pipe measuring 42 cm (16.5″). You might remember Merlin? He’s the one that stole the pool noodle bed we made for one of our other fur kids.

The 42 cm pieces form the long sides of the copper and sweater bed. We also cut two pieces measuring 33 cm (13″) to form the foot and head of the bed and four smaller pieces of measuring 4 cm (1.5″). These small pieces will be used to join the T-Pieces to the copper elbows. Depending on how high you want the bed to be off the floor cut four legs from the copper pipe.

We used Gorilla glue to glue all the bits together to form a frame and cut the sweater to fit. Now Merlin can cuddle up in comfort on the new/old sweater copper pipe bed.

My snuggle fur baby, out for the count, lol!!!

For the full instructions and other helpful kitty pics, come give us a meow on the blog.

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2 questions

DORLIS on Jul 24, 2016
Each one having his/her own bed is great, best thing next to a lap. Have you ever thought of making another above this one? The higher they can get, the better.

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JoLeen Bolton on Jul 24, 2016
Did you use any kind of cap on the bottoms of the legs to protect your bedding or to keep the metal from scratching other surfaces? I know Lowe's sells rubber tips that I bet would work if this is an issue.

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Ariel Noel on Sep 14, 2016
Love it!!!

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Rebecca Roff on Mar 24, 2019

Now That is one comfy kitty!! I did this using dowels, material and wall brakets to make a window seat for my cat ... he Loved it. : ) Thank you for bringing back a lovely memory

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