Hey, Do-it-yourselfers; Ikea Floating Shelves?

[Auntie Crazy]

All this talk of Ikea finally prompted me to check out their products. Unfortunately, they have three pages of items that correspond to the search term "floating shelves" and not one of those shelves is tagged "great for cats!". (You'd think they would be, right?!)

I want to attach shelves to my living room walls (which happen to be paneled), preferably without any obvious attachment feature, for my cats to roam around on.... can someone who has shopped at Ikea tell me which shelves are the ones I'm looking for?

I tried randomly clicking and reading descriptions, but everything I've looked at so far has a weight limit under my smallest cat's weight of 9 pounds.

Help?

Thanks in advance!

[RachelsaurusRexU]

Not aesthetically ideal, but you could attach extra support brackets externally!

I will be using these shelves for my kitty crew, as well!

[Susan]

You might find the following links to be helpful. The first shows cat shelves using IKEA shelving (it refers to IKEA "Jarpen" shelves and "Bjarnum" brackets). The next two are not IKEA, but are likely more costly.

IKEA Hack from Stockholm|moderncat :: cat products, cat toys, cat furniture, and more…all with modern style

"KatWALLk of Fame"

Crazy Cat Wall Systems - CatsPlay.com - Fun furniture, condos and climbing gyms for cats and kittens.

[Auntie Crazy]

Good links, Susan, thanks! In fact, it was a picture of the Ikea "Hacker" shelves I had in mind, I just didn't know what they were called.

AC

[Ducman69]

Home Depot and Lowes both have invisible shelf systems. The ones I bought were rated for 50lbs, which should be sufficient (remember thats static weight though).

That is only if you are screwing into a stud though, which likely you may not be able to. Still not a huge issue though, as you can simply get yourself a small strip of wood, screw that into the studs, then screw the internal metal bracket into that, and then slip the shelf over it (thats why its invisible).

If you have a recent home, most have recessed upper window ledges now, at least in the homes I looked at, in which case making the shelf yourself if easy and cheap.

You Tube

You Tube

For Ikea, I went by and the best bet are the LACK series (includes invisible shelves, vertical book cases of which two could be staggered for climbing up, and steps).



You can also add strength to invisible shelves by cutting them so they aren't so deep: ikea hacker: The skinny Lack wall shelf