Repurposing A Tidy Cats Container

My last post on refinishing a metal laundry cart left off with a tease on the kitty litter container I upcycled into a laundry detergent dispenser.

And now I’m here to deliver the deets! But first a quick thank you for following along on this here blog journey! I’m so thankful for each and every eyeball who visits my site and hopefully finds something useful to do in your home! And I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday with friends and/or family!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it on here before or not, but I would love to be a crazy cat lady. You know someone who treats her kitties like children. BUT, I married a man who does not want any pets. And I knew that going in. So…I live vicariously through other unashamed crazy cat people! 🙂 One of whom is a coworker of mine at Today’s Homeowner.

When I was trying to come up with an idea to store laundry detergent for my laundry room project, I saw some Tidy Cats kitty litter container makeovers on Pinterest. And I immediately asked my coworker if she happened to use Tidy Cats for her cats. Lucky for me, and you, she does and graciously gave me an empty one!

At the same time I was working on this container, I was also painting some furniture to sell that I’ve been storing in my garage for way too long. (If you haven’t yet, check out the rug I painted on my garage floor. It’s part of the reason I got the urge to finally clean out my furniture stash!) I was using my homemade chalk paint recipe to paint a coffee table and thought I’d just go ahead and paint the Tidy Cats container with the same paint.

I couldn’t get the lid completely off, so I just painted it as best as I could. Once it dried, I got out the jute-style rope I picked up at the home center.

The main purpose of the rope was to wrap around the top and cover up the chunkiness that made it really look like a kitty litter pail. I started at the bottom and slowly made my way up, securing it with hot glue. At this point I realized the handle was in the way and wasn’t really needed anymore, so I tore it off and tossed it.

Painting under the rope wasn’t totally necessary, but it helped in places where the rope wasn’t tight against itself, especially since it was yellow to begin with!

Once the rope was done, I knew I had to do something to cover up the Tidy Cats logo that was basically embossed in the lid. Talk about a dead giveaway!

So I glued the extra rope in a design following the curves of the lid to cover it up!

Oh yes, I touched up the red showing through the paint where it had gotten scratched during transit before adding the rope on top. I’m not too worried about the paint chipping since it won’t be moved now that it’s in its new home on the laundry cart.

And the final touch that really makes it look ‘finished’ is the ‘Soap’ sticker on the front. I made it using Lavanderia font, gray outdoor vinyl, and my Cricut vinyl cutting machine! I got the Cricut for my birthday in May and have slowly been finding little projects here and there to use it on!

Now the homeowner can stock up on the family’s go-to detergent at the big box store because this baby can hold at least 2 boxes worth of detergent at a time!

I’m not quite to the point where I need a lot of detergent on a regular basis. But when I do, I’ve got another Tidy Cats container ready for a makeover!!

Have you ever “upcycled” something similar? Or have you seen any other cool and pretty ways to reuse a cat litter container? Please share in the comments below! Thanks for Checking In! ~Chelsea