Adopting a cat, placement of stuff!

[OfficeDrama]

I'm at the research stage of cat ownership and nothing is going to happen before I'm more well read, but one of the things I've read is that the scratch post needs to be near the bed, the food and water bowls must be apart and the litter tray must be far away from food, water and bed.
How much of a must are these things? I've attached a floor plan of my house. It's a mid terrace. Where do you/would you put things?
As I've got a porch and a conservatory, there's two doors before the outside on both sides. Do people have cat flaps on both sides of their house? Or just one? Do I have to get cat flaps or can I just open the doors?
Do people put cat poo down the loo or bag it and bin it?
I feel like I might have lots of daft newbie questions! Apart from here, where do you point people to get advice? I've been to the cats protection site and RSPCA.
Thanks :)

Scratching posts have been largely irrelevant, they will pick your nicest piece of wooden furniture instead. You are right about the bowls, litter tray,etc. Ours is used to a cat flap ( just one, with access to the garden), but since we’ve recently moved, we don’t have a cat flap yet. She’s an older cat and we’re happy to let her out and in on demand which is not very often.
I double bag the poo and it goes straight to our general waste bin.

Re. placement of litter tray, it depends what internal doors you can leave open, as your cat needs 24 hour access while indoors. Looking at your floorpan I would be tempted to put the litter tray in the conservatory (unless you are in there all the time) or the garage if you are not keeping a car in the garage. You don't want it on a carpet nor in the living room unless you don't mind your cat doing a big smelly poo while you are trying to relax!

Poo - bag and bin.

Cat flaps - personal choice but garden side is better than road side. Consider type of door as well - some doors are easier to fit a flap into than others. You can just open the doors but your cat might be stuck outside if you go out before she comes back.

Apart from the sites you've mentioned, most of the main cat food brands have advice on their websites. Cat Chat is an amalgamated cat rescue and resource site: www.catchat.org/index.php

Just to add, make sure you choose a low-traffic part of your house for the tray, as cats don't like to be disturbed when they are doing their business! Too many interruptions and they might choose their own place to toilet! For that reason the hall isn't usually a good idea.

You should never let your cat out from the front of the house, it's far, far safer to only ever let them out at the back - especially as you're in a mid-terrace, they can explore a network of gardens rather than get anywhere near roads and cars. It is also safer to keep your cat in overnight - from dusk til dawn.

The gold standard for litter trays is really 1 per cat + 1 extra, so 2 for a single cat, and one on every level of the home. I know most people don't do this though... It should be easily accessible for the cat and in a quiet location.

Your cat will tell you all those things. My cat likes me to walk around with the food bowl so he can decide where he wants to eat that meal.

Yes, you can flush poop. I got wood pellets so I could compost it.

My DCat has the food and water next to each other. The CP said that wasn’t a good idea, but he likes it like that.

Bed...he moves that to his chosen position. Any blankets he doesn’t like he stuffs behind the sofa.

Thank you to you all!
There's such a lot to learn and I don't want to make any avoidable mistakes.
Although it's good that the cat will also teach me, I guess I'm not looking forward to learning that I've put the litter tray in the wrong place by finding a stray poo, or that I've overstepped a personal cat boundary by getting scratched! But it's all part and parcel, a mix of good and bad, poop and purrs! :)

Our litter tray is on the landing next to the bathroom, poo gets flushed.

Food and water bowls are in the hall as you come in the front door no one uses the front door they are up on the little cupboard so the dog can't eat it

We also have a water fountain in the hall for her.

Scratch posts went in the loft years ago!

Cats are really clean. They won’t poop on the floor for no reason. They will see the tray and use it. Don’t worry about that.

Cat poo shouldn't be flushed. There is a potential for it to contain a parasite which can contaminate the water system. Bag it and bin it.

Think about where you want the cat to roam in the home. So we wanted to shut the kittens in the kitchen at night and when we are out so they have food, drink and litter in there. They happily use all 3. We do have another drink bowl and another litter tray elsewhere for during the day. (They have recently persuaded us not to keep them in the kitchen at night by sleeping on the landing and looking too cute to move!!)