You know I’m a huge fan of the Ikea Stolmen system as the foundation for creating beautiful and functional modern cat trees (that’s what I used in the episode of My Cat From Hell last season.) There are companies that make shelves specifically for creating spiral cat trees with the Stolmen system. Two of my favorites are Hollywood Franklin and Whisker Studio.
If you’re just a bit crafty, and you have some woodworking tools at your disposal, you could try your hand at making your own cat shelves to attach to the Stolmen pole, just like Hauspanther reader Sabrina from Quebec City, Quebec did here. She wanted to give her cats more vertical space and allow them to see out the window without blocking the light coming in, so this was the perfect solution.
Sabrina purchased the Stolmen pole and mounting fixtures at Ikea and built her own shelves. These shelves are longer than others I’ve seen and they have modern carpet tiles on top to prevent slipping. I love the light and airy feel of this kind of cat tree, plus you don’t have to drill into the wall, simply secure the pole between the floor and the ceiling (it’s optional to screw the top into the ceiling for extra stability.)
If you’ve done something similar, please submit your photos, we’d love to see it!
Can she explain how she made the shelving?
I am also wondering about how she made her steps/shelves. It looks great!
I am a fan of IkeaHacker and often see ideas people come up with for their cats, including trees like this one or hidden litter boxes. One of these daZe I’m a gonna have to make my LucKy Se7en a tree and these always give me good inspiration!
Most people know I’ve not only shared my life with cats, I am also a poster child for IKEA. So this really does it for me — the longer shelves for, ahem, longer cats, as well as the floor-to-ceiling climbing/perching bliss! But our family would absolutely, positively require that the post be screwed into the ceiling. We used to have one that frequently wound up on the living room floor (no cats were hurt, thankfully!) due to our very active, running and jumping clowder. That one bit the dust, and though I want to have another, I don’t see it happening here.
hi!
Love the graphix on the rugs.
I have a question that is related to the climbing structure topic: anyone know if there is a way to attach a structure such as this by attaching the bottom and top of the pole to a wall–a German company, Profeline does it : I found the company through this site–but like many cool featured foreign systems, they do not ship here . My post and beam house has many ‘cathedral ‘ ceilings that are to high too use a tension system.
Would love to see more closeups of the shelves as to exactly how she made them – the undersides look like she may have braced them somehow? Hard to tell from these photos. I was wondering if just using standard IKEA shelving, cut in half with a hole drilled for the pole would hold the cat’s weight at the end – or whether that would be where they need bracing…I’d love to know that before sending my cats hurling to their deaths…
We made the same tree this week, however despite our best attempts at fixing the problem, we cannot stop making the pole spin. As a result, the cats are not using it as they are afraid the shelves will get off their footing when they are using it. If anyone has a suggestion, please help!!
The best way to stop the pole from spinning is to first secure the top into the ceiling with screws, then using a drill bit, drill a small hole at the top of the outer pole and through one side of both poles. Then place a small set screw in the hole. It still moves a little, but it’s much better.
The Stolmen system is designed to use two poles with fixtures attached between them. It takes a little finagling to get it to work with a single attachment system like this.