Measure the inside circumference of your post. Our suggestion is to use your belt or a long strip of cardboard as your measuring device. Arrange your high-tech tape rule along the inside of the rim and mark where the pieces intersect. Then measure the length of your rule and cut a piece of carpet using those measurements.

Glue and staple carpet to the base. Use clamps and wood braces as indicated in our picture to ensure that your carpet lies tight against the sides.

This is especially important where you fold the carpet over a corner. It has a tendency to bow out and cause rounded edges.

The round column required few staples especially at seams where the edges meet.

You will use more rope than you will imagine. Our circumference was almost 32" so we required almost 90' of sisal rope.

1. Cut open the hole as you would slice a pie. The white lines indicate the "cut pattern". The red lines show where excess carpet is cut from each slice. This does not need to be exact as the shag will cover most errors.
   
   Add glue to the back of the remaining slice, fold inward and staple.
    

2. This blow-up illustrates staples applied to each slice.

The top of the post can be left open, finished flat with the edges, or recessed as pictured here. We preferred to close the top to give Puff and Pooh a splendid place to perch.

Minus that cats, your finished playground should look something like the one pictured here.

When we moved our creation into the house, the cats needed no encouragement to begin climbing and playing on their new cat tree.

Pooh instantly jumped to the first tray and scurried up to the top perch. A few seconds later, Puff climbed to the top tray and they immediately began playing with each other.

This became an instant hit with Puff and Pooh and they can't seem to walk by it without stretching and scratching on the post.

With any luck, we'll get another few years out of our upholstered furniture as the cats seem to prefer scratching on their new playground perch.

Enjoy!