Look! Two hidden cat litter boxes in a BESTÅ bench
We have five cats, so we ideally need 6 litter boxes in the house to avoid ‘issues’.
Four boxes in our laundry room in the basement, but we needed 2 in the living room because one of our cats gets excited around feeding time and this causes her to have to ‘go’ ASAP.
So here we are IKEA-hacking to accommodate 9lb of adorable cat awesomeness. As well as the rest of ‘the horde’ who are now spoiled with a more convenient litter box location.
Materials:
- BESTÅ cabinet
We made modifications to IKEA cat box hacks we found here and other sites on the Interwebs. I list prices, brands and places of purchase at the end, by the way.
We used 1 BESTÅ storage combination with doors so it doubles as a bench for extra seating.
Hidden cat litter boxes in BESTÅ
The BESTÅ is the perfect bench height:
- Width: 47 1/4 “
- Depth: 15 3/4 “
- Height: 18 7/8 “
The Iris Litter Box with Shield fits PERFECTLY inside the BESTÅ – 18.9 x 15 x 11.7 inches.
I even put those small, clear, rubber ‘feet’ stickers on the bottom corners of each litter box so they wouldn’t slide around if a cat jumped in, and the boxes still fit fine.
First thing we did was to assemble the cabinet and test it for fit. We wanted to measure the correct height for the litter box entrances too.
Cutting entrance doors to the boxes
After getting the measurements, we disassembled the unit again. And we got round to cutting the entrances.
We cut the entrance with a jigsaw. Then, we painted the wood trim piece and glued it into place.
Unlike other IKEAhackers, we didn’t use pre-made pet doors to finish the entrance holes. We just cut the holes and finished them with ¼” trim, — way cheaper at a $12 for 3 pieces of trim vs. $60+ for two pet doors.
Caulk and moisture protection
We caulked around ALL the seams of the BESTÅ and the trim as an extra precaution against any possible leakage. Better safe than sorry.
We also coated the inside of the cabinet with Rustoleum NeverWet Liquid Repellant. It’s a new product getting great reviews. It claims to make just about EVERYTHING water repellant. We figured why not try it – if anything needs to repel liquids, it is something that might get cat pee on it. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes with this product.
Note: we found the NeverWet scrapes off the BESTÅ if you pick at it due to the material of the cabinet (we should have foreseen that as avid Ikea-ers). You might want to sand inside the cabinet and see if that helps. Just a suggestion.
We left the center partition in the cabinet for integrity, and kitty privacy.
Two hidden cat litter boxes in one bench
There is a litter box on each side, and an entrance on each side. The entrance holes line up with the litter box entrances. The holes are 11”W x 6”H.
On casters, the entrances are 11” off the ground, which is about 2” higher than the entrance to the largest, enclosed litter box with a hood we have. The cats didn’t even flinch going in and out of the cabinet.
I can attest that we have cat usage, too! That’s the real test!
Material list and Cost:
We used the following materials and spent a total of $172 without pillows, $223 with:
- IKEA BESTÅ storage combination with doors ($90) and 4 casters ($19.98)
- IRIS Litter Pan with Shield (Amazon.com $12 – we have Prime so free shipping)
- Rustoleum NeverWet Liquid Repellant ($18 Home Depot)
- 3 pieces of ¼” x 2’ x 4’ poplar trim ($12 Home Depot)
- Paint for trim (free)
- 2 IKEA Stockholm cushions ($25.98)
- 2 IKEA Malin Fransar pillows ($25.98)
