Cat walkway: How to make space for your furkids

Jules Yap·
Cats
··6 Comments
cat walkway ikea hack
Home
IKEA HACKS
Pet Furniture
Cats

We made a simple cat walkway out of LACK tables.

cat walkway ikea hack
The view is meowellous from up here!

IKEA LACK tables are strong enough to support cats, even if they are mounted upside down. So to give our cats more room in our house, we mounted tables hanging from the ceiling.

Materials:
Materials

Want a Cat Walkway on the Ceiling? Here’s how

Firstly, I assembled the tables as intended in the IKEA instructions.

Lack side table assembly

Then, I screwed angle brackets on the legs of the table with at least two screws per leg. The bracket and the base of the feet should be flush so it can sit properly on the ceiling.

fastening bracket to legs

The angle brackets I used were far larger than necessary, but I had them lying around.

Repeat this step for as many LACK tables as you need for your cat walkway.

  • Fastening brackets to legs
  • Attach brackets to ceiling for cat walkway

Since our ceiling is made of concrete, I had no problems mounting the angle brackets to it with plastic wall plugs and screws.

In our case, one plastic fixing per leg was more than sufficient to secure the table to the ceiling.

Metal braces

For get additional security, I connected adjacent tables with metal bars that I screwed to the upper (so now lower) part of the legs to distribute the load over more fixings.

  • Cat walkway with sticker decal
  • Cat walkway IKEA LACK hack
  • Cat walkway IKEA LACK hack
  • Cat walkway IKEA LACK hack
  • Cat walkway IKEA LACK hack
  • Cat walkway IKEA LACK hack
  • Cat walkway IKEA LACK hack
  • Cat walkway IKEA LACK hack

After that, it was a matter of making it comfortable for my cats. We added cushions and pillows. Also some vinyl stickers on the LACK table tops to decorate them.

Cat walkway IKEA LACK hack
Cat walkway IKEA LACK hack

To get to the cat walkway, we have a set of cat steps on the wall for them.

The cats seem to love the extra elevated space they have to roam and watch us humans from up there.

~ by Tanja

You may also like these IKEA Hacks for cats

Jules Yap
Latest posts by Jules Yap (see all)

6 Responses

  1. Hi, I have installed cat walkways myself but my cats are new to the indoors and not very curious about them. There are steps up to the walkways but how do I get them to use them?

    Reply

    1. Having thought past the tricks (see below) your cats have always had their space and plenty of it. Now it’s your space and they’re confined. What will make the steps to the walkway smell and feel much like what they used to have, the outdoors? Certainly not carpet! Bark on the steps? Sisal carpet with dirt well scrubbed in? Maybe just fine burlap or rough cloth over a bit of padding, something like that? Something with outdoor smells under the burlap, something below it to protect the shelf? I don’t know, but make the shelves/steps/walkway match their space, not yours. And not all of the sleeping spaces padded: one of mine insists on hard surfaces.

      Me, I’d have started with just plonking them on top despite it rarely working. Cats are perverse so it’s worth a try. After that considering their environment then having the patience to coax them along, which is where the tricks come in, makes more sense.

      NOTE: I’m not an expert. I have a one-bedroom apartment; I’m not handy; and the only outdoor cats have been young pound-kitties more than happy to discover indoors.

      Random ideas in no particular order:
      – just plonk them up there and let them figure it out.
      – if they like catnip or cat treats maybe put some up there before plonking them up there?
      – is there a toy they’d follow so you could lead them up to the top and onto the walk?
      – or bits of food on the way up to entice them and the bowl on the top? Variations of food/catnip/treats in various places?

      Reply

  4. I would be paranoid and support them via brackets under them in the wall too. Otherwise a really neat idea!

    Reply

    1. We actually tested the tables with my husband hanging under them. He weighs more than our six cats together, so no fear 🙂

      Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

© COPYRIGHT 2022 IKEAHACKERS.NET | IKEA® is a registered trademark of Inter-IKEA Systems B.V.
IKEAhackers.net is a fan-run website and is NOT related to IKEA®, IKEA.com or the IKEA Group.
Any and all links to IKEA.com are presented for reader convenience only and
do not imply IKEA's approval of this website and/or the modification of its products.
IKEA® and IKEAhackers.net are not liable for any product failure, injury or damage
resulting from the application of hacks featured on this site.