Big Sid's

Back in February, I was innocently minding my business at Pet Supplies Plus (I was there to do $5 nail trims for cats/dogs as a fundraiser for Crash's Landing), when Deb from Crash's asked me if I liked to paint (as in interiors). I told her I'd basically painted the entire inside of our house, so yeah, sure. She told me about this project they were undertaking at Big Sid's Sanctuary (an offshoot facility of Crash's which houses approx. 90 cats who have either tested positive for feline leukemia or feline HIV (aka FIV). I'd never been to Sid's before and always pictured it as a dreary, sad place. After my turn at the Humane Society, I'd had enough dealings with death and despair, so I wasn't sure if this was for me.

Then Deb said something that peaked my interest. She asked if I'd ever heard of the famous "cat house", which I had. She said they were doing something similar over at Sid's. If you're not aware of the cat house, you can check it out on Amazon.com here: (http://www.amazon.com/Cats-House-Bob-Walker/dp/0836221834)

Anyway, I decided to check it out. I figured I could stop by and paint for a day or two. I even recruited my friend Kim to come along.....

Well, here we are 5 MONTHS later and after countless hours (regularly going there 2, 3, 4 times a week after work), 35 gallons of paint, countless tubes of caulking and spackle, a handful of us have pulled it off and we are FINALLY finished with our own cat house! An awesome builder in GR donated all of his labor for the project and he built fabulous walkways, steps, passages from one room to another, spiral staircase, cubbies, a giant "cheese", and his ultimate creation--the sky box (an acrylic box suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the upstairs living area.

I was pleasantly surprised throughout this entire experience that this is not the dreary, sad place I expected. Rather, it's homey and loving. The cats seem pleased with all their new items and almost have a rejuvenated sense about them. I also think they appreciated our company as much as we appreciated theirs. Except for a few days when we had to block them off from certain areas, they were free roaming right along with us, and let me say, if you can paint with 90 someodd cats around you, you can pretty much paint anywhere. A few of them found themselves painted right along with the walls from time to time, and embarrassingly, on more than one occassion, even I got my ponytail stuck to more than one freshly painted closet wall, but overall seeing that place go from gaudy crack den to pottery barn chic was really worth it all.

I shot a video on Wednesday night before I left (in the sky box room), but also got some pics of the rest of the rooms which I'll upload. Even though most of these cats will never be adopted out (they can't live with "healthy" cats), it makes my heart happy to know they've got this freshly refurbished place, complete with refinished wood floors, and so many things to play on, explore and occupy them. Still, it was little Christopher who curled up in my lap and went to sleep last night as I did final touchups that reminded me, all they really want is someone to love them. Even though I'm not a Sid's worker, I'll be stopping by from time to time to see my new friends.

I shot this video with my camera and later set it to music. I think it turned out pretty good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7yMuP013J8