Do you know where you are going to put your newly bought cat wall shelves OR are you just going to put them up wherever you feel like? If you’re like many people, including myself, you don’t have any idea where you’re going to put them (at first) and you make a hasty decision that you end up regretting later.
Wall mounted cat shelves are incredibly easily to install but I still advise against installing them into a wall without some serious thought and pre-planning. Think about it, do you really want to be forced to move the wall shelf to a different location because you didn’t plan ahead and map out the locations beforehand? I’m going to guess no.
And believe me, you don’t want that gigantic pain in the butt. It happened to me and it was a colossal headache to remove it, cover the holes in the wall with spackle and paint, and then reinstall someplace else. I don’t recommend it!
And please, please, please, think about your cat’s agility prowess before selecting your location. Cat’s are incredibly nimble (most of them anyway), but even they have their limits. If you set it 6 and 1/2 feet off the floor and kitty can’t get that high without help, then you just bought yourself a nice piece of wall art.
“Papa, I can’t reach!”
I made this very mistake! First, I picked a spot I thought I really liked but found a much better spot a day later. After installing the cat wall shelves in this new location, it dawned on me that Dredd (yes I named my cat Dredd) could not reach the wall mounted cat shelf without help! Let’s just say a few expletives left my lips in that heated moment. Haha, a few? I turned into a drunken sailor!
Staring at this unreachable island among the massive ocean that is my wall (what the hell was I thinking!), I realized I was going to need another mounted cat shelf set at a lower level (perhaps 2 of them) OR some sort of large cat tower placed nearby OR I was going to have to move the mounted cat wall shelves yet again (hell no!).
After pacing around for a good while questioning my sanity, the perfect solution came to me! It just took me a bit longer because of the anger haze I was in.
Seriously, when you make a series of piss-poor decisions one after another, the blood boils and you don’t think straight. Always best to just chill, walk away, and calm down.
This perfect solution was option 2 from above, because I had a skyscraper multi level cat tree in my bedroom which I was able to move near the cat wall shelves. I bought this — Nova Microdermabrasion 53 Inches Multi-Level Cat Tree — several months early from amazon and Dredd absolutely loves it. It’s definitely a fancy piece of large cat furniture; that’s for sure.
It’s pretty big but it fits well with my living room. They had a color that matches my carpet perfectly — the dark blueish grey color — so it was a no brainer for me.
Large cat furniture and giant cat towers can be a turn off for some people because they are so large and very noticeable as soon as you enter the room.
Personally, I think it adds a little something extra to my living room and it’s a good conversation starter for people that ask “what the hell is that thing!?!”
I considered moving it back into the bedroom and just getting another wall mounted cat shelf but I decided against it — Dredd loves the new set-up just fine. Took him a few days to get use to it, but now its like it’s always been there.
So while the final outcome was positive (so lucky I had that tower!), I highly recommend giving the location of your new cat wall shelves plenty of thought before making any decisions. I was much too excited to get the shelf installed; planning went right out the window! I wanted it up and ready for Dredd to use right away.
Don’t make my mistakes. Think before you act!
