About

Hi, I’m Ryan.

I rent a small apartment, I’ve read too many interior design blogs, and I have a cat. Those three facts are basically the whole origin story. Catmoderne started the day I finished getting my living room exactly right and then noticed the litter box in the corner, glowing beige, undoing the entire thing.

Here’s my actual pet peeve, if you want one: walk into any pet store and everything is either fire-engine red or the specific gray of a hospital waiting room. It’s like the whole industry decided cat owners don’t have eyes. I didn’t buy that. So I went looking for the side tables, benches, shelves, and enclosures that hide the “pet” part and let a room still feel like yours. Some of it is genuinely good. A lot of it just photographs well and falls apart in your living room. This site is me keeping track of which is which.

How I review

Two questions, mostly. Would I actually put this in my own place? And does it survive real life — odor, cleaning access, footprint, assembly, whether the cat deigns to use it? If a piece looks great but is a nightmare to clean, I’ll tell you. Hiding the annoying parts would make this site useless, and useless is boring.

A note on honesty

Catmoderne uses Amazon affiliate links: if you buy through one I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes which products I recommend or what I say about them. You can read the full affiliate disclosure anytime.

Anyway — thanks for reading. I hope it saves you from at least one ugly purchase.

— Ryan, Catmoderne