We bought a set of four cat shelves - carpeted shelves custom-built to fit a cat, and sturdy enough to hold the weight of at least two cats. I'd looked at various stores for regular shelves, but the weight limits they claimed were ridiculous - 6 pounds, 8 pounds, etc. For our purposes, I wanted them to carry at least 30 pounds, in case two 12-pound cats ended up on the same shelf, and to account for the increase in pressure with one of them landing on it or pushing off when leaping away. These said each platform could hold over 30 pounds, and they came with drywall anchors rated at 97 pounds. Awesome. (eBay - set of 4 | Etsy - individual.)

It took us a while to get them up, and we had to go to Lowe's and get a package of shims to shove behind the shelves as the wooden bit that goes against the wall is ever-so-slightly warped, as is the nature of wood in humidity, and wasn't lying completely flat against the wall.

Toby finished putting them up in my office on Monday. That room was chosen because it's got a sort of ledge on one wall above the closet, for people who like to put knicknacks everywhere. Well, we like to put cats everywhere, so we created a stepping-stone trail up to the ledge.

How are the cats liking it? Sora was wigged out at the noise and smells and how we kept trying to entice him into the office. He was convinced that we were going to shut him up in a box and take him to the vet, and wasn't about to be reassured. So we stopped trying to coax him. Nefer was a lot more sanguine about the whole thing, and moseyed in to take a sniff.

We got her up onto the first shelf, but even with the lure of catnip, she didn't want to go any higher, and ended up snoozing for an hour or so on that shelf.




Eventually, Sora wandered in on his own and spotted the shelves. He was interested, so I got some catnip and put it on the carpeting. This was a big hit.




I even managed to get him up on shelf 2 with the catnip, but he rubbed his head and neck so hard against the carpeted shelf that he rolled himself right off of it and, his dignity in tatters, slunk out of the room as I laughed at him (after making sure he wasn't hurt!).




Today he seems to forgotten his ignominous failure of yesterday. Toby's sent me a series of photos.

Up on shelf 2.




Investigating shelf 3; hmmmm....there appears to be catnip here...




Shelf 3 is in a corner! Awesome!




Half-on, half-off. (My favorite photo of the series!)




And up to number 4!




Hallelujah! There's a new place to explore!