Keaton and Scoochie decided to take matters into their own hands (or paws) by designing and building customized cat shelves to suit their climbing needs. They chose to use IKEA shelves with the stainless side down, topped off with some very nice FLOR carpet tiles. The photo below shows the duo planning the project. What excellent craftsmanship, considering they have no opposable thumbs!
Their mom, Julie documented the process here.
March 6th, 2009 at 7:06 am
What an incredibly clever idea! Congrats to Keaton and Scoochie for the creative inspiration
I’d call that excellent craftscatship indeed!
March 6th, 2009 at 8:07 am
My Keaton thanks your Keaton.
March 6th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Beautiful and clever kits. Their tree is inspiring me to make something for my own cats.
March 6th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Well, they may not have opposable thumbs, but cats DO represent the highest form of intelligence — not to mention aesthetics — on this or any other planet.
Keaton and Scoochie are more than welcome to build some of those at OUR house, too.
March 6th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
It’s nice to see so many cats living the good life! That was very creative to turn over the shelves. Looks great.
March 7th, 2009 at 11:26 am
This is FABULOUS! I’m going to do this for my threesome. But I’ve searched the Ikea site and can’t see shelves in the length of the short, almost square size. Since the shelves are stainless steel, obviously they can’t be cut…did Keaton and Scoochie find somewhere else to buy the shortest shelves in the design?
March 7th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
This really annoys me. My cats can open their food cannister, remove my book mark from my book, and escape through a quarter inch crack, but they swear they are incapable of carpentry. I always suspected they didn’t really need thumbs for that…now the truth is out.
March 7th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
SUPERB idea! I have owned cats all my life and also now own a cattery.. This is a FANTASTIC IDEA! WELL DONE YOU!
March 7th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
very nice place for kitties to perch
March 8th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Hi, this is Julie, Keaton’s and Scoochie’s Human. I did buy cut Ikea’s stainless shelves — they’re thin layer of stainless covering particle board, so it’s fairly easy if you have a friend with a saw. And you don’t have to worry about the edges being perfect, because the brackets cover them.
March 25th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Did the FLOR carpet tiles have to be cut, and if so did they have to have the edges finished in any way? How were they attached to the shelves? Thanks.
March 30th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Can you please link to the where on IKEA these can be found, thanks so much
March 30th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Please disregard my comment- i finally found it here… sorta… http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S69851470 you may want to mention that you can only get it onsite and cannot order online. Or at least that’s the way it seemed on the website. Thanks
January 28th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Th FLOR tiles had to be cut. I got the ones called Poodle and used a utility knife. The edges were clean. I glued them with Gorilla Glue — so powerful the cats clawing hasn’t pulled them up a year later.
June 11th, 2010 at 11:16 am
you are a lovely Human, indeed. i am sure they will keep you.
January 23rd, 2011 at 9:35 am
Hi Julie: such a great idea I ran to Ikea – dilemma – what size shelf did you use – 11″ or 7-1/2 deep? Thank you!
January 23rd, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Oh Nevermind – upon closer inspection of your photos I saw the 11″ mark on the box – question – did you use the full length of the 2 longer shelves? And curious as to what size you cut the smaller ones down to – looks about 10-11″ – really perfect project for my condo – thx so much!