A scratching post that gets ignored is usually not the post's fault. It gets put in the spare room, or the hall, or wherever it looks least out of place — and the cat carries on scratching in the room where the cat actually lives. Whether something can sit in a living room without anybody minding is therefore a functional specification, not a cosmetic one.

That is what this one is trading on. The base is finished in an ultra-soft grey fabric intended to sit in with the rest of a room rather than announce itself, and the post above it is sisal, which is the surface cats will actually work at. There is a small ball attached for batting at, so it does something on the days the cat is not in the mood to scratch. The whole thing measures 55x34x34cm.

• 55 x 34 x 34cm
• Sisal post
• Very soft grey fabric base
• Small ball attached for play
• A single post rather than a tree
• Grey finish, meant to sit in a furnished room

The 55cm is the whole thing, base included. 55cm is the whole item including the base, and nothing supplied to us separates the height of the sisal column from the height of what it stands on. That is the measurement that decides whether a full-grown cat can stretch up the post rather than reach across it, and stretching is half of what a cat is doing when it scratches. If yours scratches by standing on its back legs against a door frame, measure that reach and be sceptical. No weight is published for the base either, which is the other thing that determines whether a post stays put when a cat leans into it properly.

Who it's for: one-cat households and flats where the post has to live in the room people sit in, and cats that scratch low on furniture rather than reaching up it.