Under the Couch Toy Blocker

Problem: My cat's toys keep getting lost under the couch.

I found myself day in and day out getting down on my hands and knees with my phone as a flashlight searching for my cat's favorite ball. My cat, Rally, has tons of balls to play with, but of course he only wants to play with the blue ball with the feathers on it.

I scoured the internet searching for anything I could buy that would block underneath my couch, on all exposed sides. I was really excited when I found this item, but it doesn't really exist yet. Then I saw this, which gave the look of a college dorm. 😕 Next I found a DIY blog from somebody in 2013 that came up with their own idea to block children's toys. I thought it was brilliant and would work for my problem so I followed her advice. Her solution didn't completely work for me though, because my couch is about 3. 5 inches off the ground and there wasn't a tube large enough that would be wedgeable under my couch. I even tried doubling up on the tubes, as the author suggested, but there was still too much space left. I still placed the doubled up tube between the two couch legs anyways, however, my cat became intrigued (or might I say obsessed) and would claw at the foam tubes, pulling them out from underneath the couch.

I tried to set the couch legs on top of the ends of the tubes to keep then from moving, but because they weren't tall enough, my cat was still able to get his ball past them somehow.

Next, based on another web search, I came up with the idea to use some kind of plastic mesh to stretch from one leg to the other. I thought about using roof gutter protectors from the hardware store. But then my challenge was how to connect them to the legs on the couch so that it looked presentable. I thought about velcro strips around the legs, as well as mini vertical black tension rods to place next to each leg. Unfortunately, there are not three and a half inch black tension rods available for purchase so I would have had to make my own, which would have entailed some different sized plastic tubes cut down, some springs, and some rubber end caps. I did the research to make them, but I still wondered if my cat would also be intrigued with the mesh and would somehow find a way to tear it or pull it out from the couch. That's a lot of work to find that out.

Solution:
I finally came up with a solution that was much easier and did the trick. I cut some black foam board into strips that were the exact height of the gap and just a little longer than leg to leg. I had planned to use velcro to secure the foam board to the back of each couch leg, but it turns out that because I had cut it to the perfect height it really wedged in perfectly under there (Note: I have carpet.) It looks amazing; You can't even see it. And because it's a hard surface, the cat doesn't seem to be intrigued by it.🙌

Items needed:

• 1/8" thick black foam board (something like this. To find a single sheet larger than 40" you may need to go to an art store) 
• Scissors/ exacto knife
• Velcro (optional- since hard flooring has less grip than carpet, velcro may be needed) 

This solution works best for a couch that sits 3.5" or higher off the ground, and to detour a curious cat. The other solutions in this post are perfectly acceptable for lower couches and for blocking the toys of children and non-curious cats/dogs.