welcome to the porch

The Cat Nap Inn

Where rescued cats, porch stories, handmade art, and slow afternoons live.

The Cat Nap Inn is a yellow three-bedroom, two-bath ranch house with black shutters, set in the Sterling area outside Brunswick. The house was built in the late 1940s or early 1950s and lived its first life over near the Brunswick hospital. When the land that's now The 99 Retreat was being developed, this house — along with five others — was moved here and given a new skin. It's been mine since 2018.

It's mine because of Papa James. He'd been watching me work my recovery, and he believed in it enough to put $15,000 toward this house. My credit score was a point or two short of the loan, so he went ahead and bought it outright, and I paid him back like a mortgage, month after month, for years. One day he came over and I went to hand him my payment, and he told me the Cat Nap Inn was paid in full. I have the deed. I still don't have words big enough for what that man did.

The yard is doing its own talking — canna lilies, elephant ears, ginger, and a long list of plants I've put in the ground with my own hands. The house itself is a work in progress, the way a real home always is. New corners get loved on, old corners get re-loved, and the porch keeps holding everything.

A potted elephant ear plant at the Cat Nap Inn with three enormous green heart-shaped leaves spreading out over the yard, a smaller agave tucked in at the base, and a grape arbor above — The elephant ears, holding court in the yard — heart-shaped leaves the size of dinner plates, all of them turned toward the sky.

The Inn is also a living classroom for everything Heart of Care teaches: nervous-system care, grief, presence, the way safety is built from very small, very repeated kindnesses.

It is a real place with real corners: the back door with the poster that kept talking back, the hallway wall carrying your artwork, and the everyday pieces that turned the house into a sanctuary instead of just an address.

We rescue, too. Cats, dogs, birds, chickens, fish, and other small creatures and farm animals — the Inn (and the 99 Retreat alongside it) keeps the door open for whoever shows up needing a soft landing. The Cat Nap Inn, The 99 Retreat, Soul Cloth Sanctuary, and Heart of Care all belong, in the truest sense, to Jesse James the bullpei, the kitties, Heather of the Cluckshack, Frank and Doreen the parakeets — and the Honey Badger, of course. We just sign the paperwork.

what we've been making lately

Handmade things on a real refrigerator

The Cat Nap Inn has been busy lately — handmade magnets, studio mess, and the kind of everyday making that keeps a house alive.

A white refrigerator at the Cat Nap Inn with handmade magnets displayed across the top door among family keepsakes and cheerful notes — Handmade magnets living right alongside family snapshots, notes, and everyday proof of life.

A collection of handmade glitter magnets with buttons, vintage images, feathers, playing-card details, and tiny embellishments arranged on a white refrigerator

Busy hands make a house feel lived in.

Around here, the Inn is not just a porch and a rescue house. It is also a making place. Magnets on the fridge, materials on the table, Soul Cloth in the works, and the Honey Badger moving from one corner of care to the next.

Weston's room

A room held ready with love

This is Weston's bedroom at the Cat Nap Inn — a real soft place inside the house, made with care, memory, and the kind of love that keeps a room ready.

Weston's bedroom at the Cat Nap Inn with a neatly made bed, floral curtains, framed art, and a small corner shelf — The bed made up and waiting — tender, simple, and kept with care.

A wider view of Weston's bedroom at the Cat Nap Inn with art on the wall, a desk, and the room arranged for making and resting — The whole room — lived in, loved, and full of the little things that make a place feel held.

View into Weston's bedroom from the doorway at the Cat Nap Inn, showing the bed, rug, and framed art — The doorway view — like peeking in to make sure the room still remembers him.

resident-in-chief

Jesse James

Briana's bullpei — half bulldog, half shar-pei, all heart. Head of welcoming committee, supervisor of all naps, official greeter of every soul who turns into the driveway. He's the porch boss and the proof that loyalty and softness live in the same body.

inside the Inn