Well, some might say that our family has moved into crazy
cat people territory. If that is the description for what we’ve done, I’ll
proudly embrace it. Our cats are members of our family and we wanted them to
feel comfortable in their home.
Having been introduced to Jackson Galaxy’s show by my
mother, I immediately was intrigued by the concept of shelving on the walls
around a room for your cats. Having lived in our current house for just over a
year and having nothing really inspiring me for a space on my living room
walls, I made the decision to propose cat shelving to Brandon.
Our oldest
female cat, Booger, is very shy. Since we’ve moved into this house and
installed a cat door in the kitchen door connecting to the garage, her preferred
place is alone on top of the 6’ cat tree in the garage (to stare out into the
backyard). I thought that she might develop some confidence and join our family
more with a high perch inside.
Brandon was quite reluctant about the cat shelving
proposition at first, namely due to the amount of work and money to be
invested, but with a little discussion, he agreed to green light the project
and has since said that he’s glad we went forward with it.
I looked at IKEA’s shelving (and brackets) to determine what
lengths were available. With those lengths in mind, I went about the room to
see how much space I’d like the shelves to cover. With that information, we
determined how many of each shelf size we would need.
I cut twine to the lengths of the proposed shelves and taped
them onto the wall with painter’s tape to decide on shelf locations. It was
really nice to have an idea going into the project of where everything would
hang and how it might look.
**Taking Jackson’s recommendations about multiple exit/entry
points to heart, we made certain to include them and it has proven helpful for
our less confident cat to have a getaway when our playful cat decides to poke
fun at her.**
We ended up purchasing 4 of the shelves in the 74 ¾” x 10 ¼”size, 2 of the shelves in the 43 ¼” x 10 ¼” size, and 4 of the shelves in the 11¾” x 10 ¼” size. Given that the recommended weight on some of the shelves (they’re
intended to be free floating) was between 7-33 pounds on the small and medium shelves,
we opted to buy some brackets to reinforce the small and medium shelves just in
case.
We also wanted the cats to have more comfortable spaces to
lie down in addition to the actual shelves, so we made sure to incorporate
these really fun cardboard scratcher/loungers (which were surprisingly cheap on
amazon) in addition to the jumbo fleece pet bed atop the china cabinet.
The only problem we have encountered with
the scratcher/loungers has been that our more rambunctious scratcher has gone
at one of the loungers so vigorously that she has flung it off the shelf.
Fortunately, she has not been hurt (or any property, it’s very lightweight) and
it has not scared her off continued scratching.
In addition, I wanted to provide a surface on the shelving
that would prevent the cats from potential slipping as they hopped up or down
as well as ran on the shelves (which they do often!). In my research I found
that sisal rugs are easy to clean, hold up well indoor/outdoor and to abuse,
are comfortable to be on, and cats love to use them for scratching. Through this company, I was able to buy sisal remnants (which are already backed with
non-slip materials). We ended up having to cut the rolls to size for our
shelves but saved so much money doing it that way over having custom sizing
done.
The sisal isn’t stuck onto the shelves with anything (I
wanted the freedom to change it out or repurpose the shelves down the road if
our new spaces don’t accommodate all of the shelves), but we’ve had no real
problems with them. The non-slip material holds them onto the shelves really
well and the only displacement we’ve had have been on the small shelves when a
cat decides to push off really hard in a fast jump. The rug will shift the
smallest amount and we’ll just push it into place as noticed.
You can see the rug shift on the small shelf of this photo. Our most used entry/exit way and the most likely to get slippage. I might consider nailing the carpet to this shelf in the future or perhaps attempting velcro strips.
We added some wall vinyls of cats for fun six months into the shelves being up. I think they're a cute addition, but probably wouldn't put as many up again.
We added some wall vinyls of cats for fun six months into the shelves being up. I think they're a cute addition, but probably wouldn't put as many up again.
Overall, the shelves have been wonderful. Our shy cat has
definitely made the shelf above the couch with the scratcher/lounger her
preferred place during the hot/cold extremes. She comes inside so much more
now.
Our second female, Sophie, loves the shelves and is on them
daily. When not sleeping in our bed, she is leaping onto the shelves,
scratching ferociously before jetting around the longest shelves to sleep in
the pet bed on top of the china cabinet. Her second favorite spot is nearby the
pipe from the wood stove in the winter: staying warm and getting a view out the
front window from her high throne.
Our youngest and most playful cat, Luca, has only recently
acquired a love for the shelves.
He is constantly seen peeking over the shelf
that is above the entry to our kitchen or laying down on “Boog’s shelf” much to
her annoyance.
My six year old enjoys throwing small cat toys onto the shelf and Luca racing up the shelves to retrieve them.
We also like to bounce the laser along the walls and watch the cats go racing up the shelves after it.
We love the shelves. We will definitely re-install them as
we move into a new home. We think that cat shelving will become a permanent
fixture in the rooms that our family frequents the most and might even make way
into bedrooms, but to a lesser extent than this living room undertaking.
Items purchased for the shelving are linked above, but a
list below as well:
Sisal Rug Remants - Sisalrugs.com *Note: the remnants will come in differing sizes and colors/textures of sisal, we received a nice mix of dark/light scraps and varying thicknesses and incorporated a few different ones for the cats*)
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