Advice on kitten-proofing my home

[Falcon1]

We are currently renovating our home. Once it's finished, we have promised the kids that we can get two kittens. I love cats and had them for many years, but it's been a long time since I had kittens and I can't remember what they're like. Everything I'm reading online suggests that they are likely to destroy my lovely new house! How can I keep scratching the (new) furniture, peeing on (new) carpets etc to a minimum? Any tips?

Thank you!

Aquamarine1029 Wed 03-Apr-19 19:05:23
My #1 piece of advise is to start trimming their front nails right away. They may fuss a bit but they will get used to it when done regularly. I have 5 cats and trim their nails every 1 - 2 weeks. All of them are very accommodating about it and I have never had ANY damage to my home or furniture from scratching.

^ make sure you get a vet to show you how first they have blood vessels in their nails

Great tip on Zooplus, thank you.

Trimming their nails - I never would have thought to do that. Will definitely discuss with the vet when we get them

Thanks all!

I've never trimmed any of mine's nails, didn't know it was a thing.

The only damage we have is to our duvet cover from them running all over it as kittens, and to be fair we did encourage this by playing with them.

Other than that nothing - we have 2 scratching posts and just told them off straight away for touch anything else.

We do leave the doors open all the time though - otherwise the carpets get dug at and you are forever getting up to let cats in and out. Helps that our house is quite open plan.