In February 2018, Hilton Patton tragically lost his younger brother Boston to suicide. Boston had owned two Bengal cats who he loved more than anything, and Hilton offered to take the cats in.
Hilton wanted to do something special for the cats to honor his little brother. And so, he decided to transform his basement into an incredible cat paradise.
Bengal cats are active and intelligent cats who love playing and climbing. Because of that, Hilton decided to create a jungle-like enclosure for the two cats, Benji and Nala. He wanted to give the cats lots of things to climb and plants to hide in.
Hilton spent all his money buying supplies for the basement, and so he was only able to pay professionals to put up the framing and lay the turf on the ground. Some of Boston’s friends also volunteered to help Hilton with the electrical work.
“I know this probably will look quite amateur, and that’s honestly because it completely is,” Hilton wrote on Imgur. “Going into to this project, I had literally zero experience doing anything I did, I just knew I wanted to do something awesome for my little brother and his cats.”
Over the next few days, Hilton and his friends worked tirelessly on the basement.
Once the framework was all done, Hilton and his friends put up all the drywall. Then, they started running optic fiber wires through the walls. After that, Hilton installed ceiling speakers so he could play jungle sounds for the cats.
On one of the walls, Hilton created an incredible night scene. He used a series of small lights to make a beautiful recreation of one of Boston’s favorite photos.
Once the foundation of the room was finished, Hilton began creating shelves for the cats to climb on. He also covered the walls in green carpeting. Then, he had the professional come in and lay down the turf for the cats to walk on.
Finally, Hilton put in cat trees, a water feature, a hammock, and a little garden filled with Boston ferns. Just like that, the room was complete.
Once everything was ready, Hilton brought Benji and Nala into the room. The cats immediately fell in love with their new home. Benji was particularly fond of the wall cave Hilton built.
The cats both also enjoyed napping on the cat trees and climbing up the carpet-covered walls. The two cats kept finding new things they loved in the room. Hilton was happy to see them enjoying the room, and he has lots of ideas for how to improve the enclosure.
Hilton shared photos of the cats on Imgur, and they quickly went viral. Everyone was touched by the lengths Hilton went to make his brother’s cats happy. Many Imgur users asked Hilton to start a GoFundMe so they could help him make improvements in the basement.
“A few comments had pointed out connecting it to an outside enclosure in my backyard, and I love that idea, so I’m going to try to do that as soon as spring arrives!” Hilton wrote on his GoFundMe page.
Hilton found an incredible way to honor his late brother and show him how much he loves him. If you want to see more photos of the stunning jungle enclosure, check out Hilton’s Imgur page.
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