My cat loves sleeping next to me while I’m on the PC, but the chair I set up for him blocks my drawer. Any ideas on how to work around this? Maybe some kind of desk-mounted bed or shelf? Sorry if this isn’t the right subreddit.

I don't have a garden just a tiny enclosed patio (wannabe catio!) and currently where I can walk my cats there is no grass. So I created this to give them a grass experience! Used barley and rye seeds as these are meant to be extra good for kitties. Would love to say they love it but they mostly just stare distrustfully at it for now 😂 ah well.... Cat mom life!

We moved into an unfurnished student apartment across the globe in Helsinki recently, and wanted something for our little buddy Miso to climb on. I saw a picture of something similar to this online and decided to try and make my own, using dead pine wood from the forest floor, a drill we borrowed from the library and some plywood. We had some spare shelf pieces that we used for the base.

Materials:

• pine branches (free)

• the longest screws I could find (200cm) plus some other assorted sizes (<5€)

• plywood (a spare shelf piece as the base, then one 10€ piece that I cut into platforms)

• an old rug from a free pile and some fabric from a thrift store (pretty cheap)

• cheap hand saw (10€), drill borrowed from library, sandpaper

First, we went for a walk in the woods and found some nice gnarly pine branches that had fallen in recent storms. It's a bit unethical (and I think illegal in Finland) to take dead wood from the forest, but it was a small amount anyways. I bought a cheap hand saw that we used to take off the piece we were looking for. Pic 3 is us in the forest trying out some possible structural combinations, then pic 4 is us at home trying to assemble it.

Assembling it ended up being super frustrating without any clamps to hold things together while drilling, but I made it work in the end. The main structure comes from drilling the really long screws up from below the base platform into the base of the wood. Cutting the wood bases to be flat and sit at the right angle with just a hand saw was also really difficult. Pic 5 shows the first draft of this, then I trimmed off the excess branches and connected them to each other more with some screws.

Finally, I cut up and sanded some plywood (this time using a vice at the library to get the right angles) and attached the platforms. I put some old ratty carpet I found in a free pile on top, then "upholstered" with some thrift store fabric.

So happy that Miso likes it! He especially loved when we moved it to the window. I hope this guide is useful for others!

Fostering 3 kittens means I have 6 total. I had an ordering frenzy and these came! I am so happy to see these nerds living the good life. Two more pieces have been installed in the main room.

So what do we think?? At last the cat likes it.

Will add some more features soon.

Featuring Oliver and Calliope 🙂

It’s an indestructible cat tower with multiple nests for cozy beds! I got this when I saw CVS was closing some stores an hour or so from me. These pharmacies will typically sell everything!

A few days ago, with the help of my mother we did this wood frame to protect the window ! Now my voids are able to safely watch outside I’m so happy ! It is far from perfect but I’m so proud and glad that we could do that !

a compilation from my catified living room

I’ve got a 4 foot wall and a narrow window sill. I don’t think that anything could stop my cat from trying to jump to it and the window sill is like a 13 foot drop to the ground level.

I’ve contacted a company about installing a loft net horizontally but they have been struggling to figure out how to access the far side since there isn’t much space to work with below.

Does anyone have any ideas, for if the net doesn’t work out?

With a lot of help from my dad,

She immediately got the zoomies and ran up on the wall.

We recently moved into a loft condo: kitchen and living room downstairs, with a spiral staircase up to a bedroom loft that overlooks the floor below. Instead of a railing, the loft has a hip wall with a ledge about 15 feet above the lower level, and it's the perfect width for our two cats to jump up and walk along. Photos attached.

Our cats have lived in multi-level places before, but always with a railing they could see through. They aren't allowed upstairs unsupervised (we block the stairs when we're out), but even standing a few feet away, it's terrifying when one hops up and strolls along the ledge.

Long term, we'd love to replace the hip wall with a railing, but we just finished a big renovation and that's not in the budget right now. So we're looking for an interim safety measure or deterrent.

What we need:

• Keeps the cats from walking on the ledge, or at least makes it safer

• Doesn't block the view. The loft looks out on 20+ foot floor-to-ceiling windows, which is the whole point of living here, so building the wall up higher isn't ideal

• Retractable or easy to put away when the cats aren't upstairs, so it's not an eyesore. We've imagined something that pulls out from the far wall along the ledge, and then can retract back?

• If it's a barrier, it has to sit on the outer edge of the ledge. Anything on the inner edge, they'd just climb over, which puts them in an even more dangerous spot

What we've considered:

• A thin net or fabric pulled along the outside edge. We like the retractable idea, but we're worried about claws snagging, or them falling through in between

• A triangular or peaked topper so there's no flat surface. We're hesitant, because if they can't see what's on the other side, they might try to climb over it with nowhere to land

My husband is very handy and we have a solid collection of tools, so we're happy to build something. We're just stuck on ideas that meet all of these criteria at once. Nothing will be 100% foolproof, but anything that makes this meaningfully safer is worth doing. Would love to hear what you'd try!

please ignore the clutter and the roll of flooring. This is an old house and we're renovating. obviously the cat highway was the priority.

All of these boards and boxes are either anchored in studs or we used heavy duty metal anchors. I also have grips on the ends or each board to prevent slipping. I don't play around with safety. Our kitties absolutely love it! I have a spinal injury and was recovering from a spinal surgery when I primed and painted all the shelves for the living room. I also helped with the wallpaper. We added the bedroom shelves later on, and plan to keep adding. I painted all of those as well. Also you can peep our catio in the kitchen window. We also plan to expand that eventually.

First off I am NOT a DIY person! I have a tiny patio that I have started letting my 7 month old pair explore when supervised at home (I also walk them on a leash daily but they love chilling outside). One would-be escape artist was hoping to use the window sill pictured as a launchpad to hop the fence. I saw an idea about pipes so created by own version with these pool noodles on string. The idea is they would not allow a solid landing so they would fall if they tried. Do you think it would work? I always plan to half supervise them but this would eg let me clean / cook with the door open. Place is rented and am not allowed permanent fixtures. Suggestions welcome!

Not sure what to do with the high points yet. It has some lateral wobble so I may need to add another support and disguise it as a staircase for my older cat in order to make it super sturdy (it could hold its own before i added the vertical support, used some large lags and washers). The original piece of wood alone weighs at least 100 lbs

Source: TikTok | @catioguy

This was the litter mat for one of my litter boxes, until my little gray boy decided that he would rather use it as some sort of tunnel/plaything. I fought the inevitable for a few days, trying to figure out how to make it less attractive to him. After about 5 days and no progress, I bought a different litter mat, hosed that one off and now its a cat tunnel. Fuq it.

He likes it, but it is bare compared to the garden where he gets to hang out for shorter periods. Current amenities: cat door, shelf for door access, bird feeder, railing that he paces on top of or hides behind to birdwatch, chair for me that he seems uninterested in.

He is young and big on hunting and exploring. I'm thinking more climbing/hiding spots, a bed/lounger that won't get mildewed outside (??), cat grass /decorative plants....?