When Danica and Chris noticed a beautiful black stray feline lingering around their yard, they never imagined that their desire to help would lead them on quite an adventure. 

What began as leaving food and water for him under the tree soon evolved into a full-fledged project of building a cozy winter shelter.

That’s right! This dynamic duo, who love home renovations, decided to create a fancy winter residence for their neighborhood’s famous stray cat, known as Fat Billy. Here’s their story!

Danica and Chris have known Fat Billy for a couple of years. This striking black feline is well-known in their neighborhood for being cautious, lonesome, and independent.  

Despite their best efforts, neither Danica nor Chris succeeded in getting close to him. Fat Billy remained determined to maintain his distance from humans.

This left Danica, who was eager to help him, with limited options. Each day, the only thing she could do was sneak some food and water under the tree when he wasn’t around.

Despite Fat Billy obviously being well-fed (hence the endearing adjective), Danica still wanted to ensure he had enough food to eat. 

Once he realized that these folks were providing him with meals, he started visiting their yard more often. 

However, as winter approached and the weather turned colder, Danica began to worry even more about her new feline friend.

Even though Fat Billy made their yard his new home, he still didn’t let anyone get too close to him. This meant bringing him indoors was out of the question. 

So, Danica came up with a brilliant plan – she decided to build Fat Billy his very own house!

At first, her husband Chris wasn’t entirely sold on the idea! He thought that doing it was completely unnecessary. However, Danica was determined, so he eventually jumped on board.

Her original idea was to place a plastic bin in the yard and stuff it with straw, hoping that Fat Billy would use it as his winter shelter. Chris, on the other hand, had a different vision. He said:

“If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it right! We’re gonna build a nice cedar shake cabin for him, and it’s gonna be amazing!”

So, the two rolled up their sleeves and drew up plans to build their stray cat an insulated house using leftover materials they already had on hand.

Luckily, being an interior design couple, building a cat house was right up their alley! The project took about a week, and the results were nothing short of amazing. 

After placing the house in their yard, they eagerly waited to see if Fat Billy would approve. Well, what do you think?

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A post shared by DANICA • Nadine Stay (@nadine_stay)

Danica knew that introducing a new cat house near his meal spot might be a lot for a skittish feline like Fat Billy. She understood he needed time to adjust to the changes. As she shared:

“It took about four days before we noticed Fat Billy come back, and it took another few days (along with the help of some wet food inside the house) before we enticed him to go inside!”

However, as evident from the video above, Fat Billy seems to be loving his new home! As Danica jokingly captioned it, “Inspections passed, lease is signed, we have ourselves a new neighbor!” and it’s a heartwarming sight to behold.

While Fat Billy’s enjoying his new home, Danica and Chris have even bigger plans for him. They hope to gain his complete trust and eventually find him a forever home.

In the meantime, this caring couple will continue to look out for him, and their favorite stray will keep showing his gratitude from a safe distance.