Most people buy one shelf, put it up, and the cat ignores it. Not because the shelf is bad, but because a single shelf is a dead end. Cats use a route, not a platform. This is how to plan one in an afternoon.
1. Watch where your cat already goes
Before you buy anything, notice which windowsill it sleeps on, which chair it jumps to first, which corner it retreats to when guests arrive. A wall route works when it continues a path the cat has already chosen. A route built in the room's dead corner stays empty, however good it looks.
2. Start at something it can already reach
The first step should be no higher than a piece of furniture your cat uses now: the back of a sofa, a chest of drawers, a windowsill. If the first step needs a jump, an older or heavier cat will not take it, and neither will a nervous one.
3. Keep the rise about 12 inches
Roughly 12 inches (30 cm) between steps suits most adult cats, going up diagonally rather than straight. Straight up is a ladder, and cats treat ladders as work. A diagonal is a staircase, and they walk it without thinking.
4. Give the route a destination
A run of steps that ends in nothing gets used once. End it in somewhere worth being: a bed, a hammock, a wide perch with a view of the room or the street. That destination is what the whole route is for.
5. Put a scratching surface at the bottom
Cats stretch and scratch before they climb. If there is nothing to scratch at the base of the route, they use the nearest chair leg. A sisal panel or a wrapped post at floor level solves it before it starts.
6. Plan the way down
Coming down is harder than going up, and it is where cats slip. Keep the steps close enough that the cat can reverse the route rather than jump the whole height, and leave the landing clear of anything breakable.
What that looks like as a shopping list
A basic route for one cat, in a normal room:
- A scratching panel or post at floor level, where the route starts
- Two or three wall steps, rising diagonally about 12 inches apart
- One bed, hammock or wide perch at the top as the destination
Two wall pieces in the same order take 10 percent off automatically, and an order over $180 takes 15 percent off the whole thing. Shipping within the United States is free.
If you rent, or cannot drill
Everything above assumes screws in a wall. If that is not an option, the route moves to the window instead: a suction mounted perch gives the same thing a top shelf does, which is height and a view, without a single hole. The rest of the No Drilling, No Damage collection covers scratching and furniture protection the same way.
Before you drill
Wall type decides everything. Drywall, plaster, brick, concrete and tile each take different anchors, and the hardware in the box is general purpose. Fix into a stud where you can, use anchors rated well above your cat's weight, and check them from time to time as you would with any wall mounted furniture. If you are unsure, a handyman will hang the whole route in an hour.
Questions we get asked most often are answered on the questions page. If yours is not there, write to halstead.supply@gmail.com.