How to Make a DIY Staircase for a Kitty Jungle Gym (Plus updating cat items for a more beautiful home!)

worstontheblockMay 25, 2021

Interested in creating more fun activities for your indoor cat? Tired of how ugly all the typical cat toys are? Then follow along and see how we built and updated our kitty jungle gym and bench seat litter box.

Have you seen our post about our kitty jungle gym? It made the cats and humans of the house so happy.

It was a wonderful day when we got rid of all those ugly cat trees, and kitty loves being able to climb all the way up to the ceiling and take nice long naps!

BUT I was never totally happy with how it looked, despite the improvement. I was never crazy about the kitschy shelves and they also weren’t mounted in the right place which caused the cats to bypass the top shelf.

Since we were updating our bedroom (full reveal to come!), I took this as the perfect time to also update the jungle gym.

It is his room too, after all!

The plan:

Different shelves with a wood finish and straight lines (with better placement)

The scratching post must stay! They love it.

Same for the bed, but it could definitely use fresh fabric.

Turning the IKEA hack on it’s side to house his food and water dishes and with cat beds on top. (This may get a fancy update down the line but for now, it’ll do.)
Painting the litter box bench
Refreshing some cat toys

Staircase Cat Shelves

What you’ll need:

1×8 x 6’
1×3 x 6’
6’ section of Quarter round
A way to cut the wood (see notes)
Sand paper
Stain or paint
Screws
Drill and driver
Anchors (if needed)
Level

Notes:

I created my jungle gym to have just three, 2ft long shelves. You can change the length or add more shelves; just do your math and purchase the appropriate amount of wood.

You’ll need a way to cut the wood into sections. If you have a saw, great! Take all safety precautions and cut away.

But if you don’t, you are not out of luck! You can:

ask a friend with a saw to help you OR

ask the place you purchase the wood from to cut it for you. There may be a very small fee to do this, but it’s totally worth it. You can complete many projects this way without making the investment in a dangerous and expensive tool.

Make sure to buy wood that is not warped. See our 8 mistakes to avoid when buying wood here.

1. Cut Your Wood to Size

Cut your wood (or get it cut for you) to your desired length.

For our three, 2-ft long shelves, we had 9 pieces of wood total between the 1×3, 1×8 and quarter round.

**Always read all instructions and take all safety precautions when using power tools!**

2. Sand

Make sure you sand down the shelves on all sides. Start with a coarse grit paper and finish with a fine grit to make a nice smooth finish.

You don’t want kitty getting any splinters!

Wear a mask whenever you sand as you don’t want to breathe in any of those fine particles. If you can work outside that is very helpful for ventilation purposes.

You also won’t make a huge mess inside with all that saw dust.

For a nice finish, use long sweeping motions along the grain. Otherwise you may get scratches in the wood (like I did here.)

HOWEVER, if you like that more farmhouse/distressed look, go for it. Knots and other imperfections are great for this as well.

Wipe away any excess dust after they’re all sanded.

3. Stain or paint

At this point, you can use any stain or paint that you (and kitty) love and that will look great in your space.

I’ve seen cat shelves like this in bold prime colors and they look really cool.

I decided to play it safe here and go with this Verathane stain in the color Early American. I wanted it to just blend in with the room and it does that really nicely.

It’s the same color that I used for our curtain rod shelf.

And staining is so easy! Just give your stain a mix, put some on an old rag and wipe it onto your board in the same long sweeping motions you used to sand.

Be sure to wipe up any excess stain with your same rag. I did two coats to really get that nice rich color.

Allow to dry completely.

4. Assemble your shelves

Now you have to attach the 1×8 to the 1×3.

Decide how you want it to hang. You can put the shelves at the bottom of the 1×3, at the top or in the middle. I liked how it looked at the top so that’s what we went with, but do what you love.

Either way, you will align your board in the proper place, and then using your driver, create a pilot hole at one corner through the back of the 1×3 and into the edge of the 1×8. Then use your drill to screw it in.

You can use the other shelves to hold the wood in place while you’re drilling.

You can also use a brad nailer for this if you have one.

At this point you can still adjust the other end of the board as there’s only one screw secured. Align the board to make sure it’s in the right place and the wood is even, then drill a pilot hole and screw into the other corner.

Then add at least two more screws in the middle section using the same process.

We also added a ¼ round molding to strengthen the joint. For this we just used some finish nails and wood glue to secure.

Repeat this process for all three shelves.

5. Decide where you want the shelves

For placement:

You can totally get creative with the placement of the shelves but remember that it has to be functional. If the distance is wrong, kitty won’t want to climb on it.

As a guide, allow about 2 feet between any horizontal shelves.

If you’re using the shelves as a staircase, you can put the vertical shelves about one foot distance high above another if you shorten the horizontal distance to about 1.5 feet.

While you don’t want to put the shelves too far apart, you also don’t want to put them too close together. Kitty may try to skip shelves that are unnecessary, making longer and sketchier jumps.

I mentioned this in my previous post about the first version of our cat shelves, and this was one of the reasons I wanted to update our jungle gym.

Function is important!

You can make a template of your shelves by either tracing the back of each shelf onto sheets of paper or you can just use painters tape in the length of the shelf.

In my opinion, the painter’s tape was ideal because it was quick and you could easily restick it if you don’t like the placement.

Either way, a template will be very helpful to determine you shelf placement as you can tape them up and move them around as necessary instead of drilling a bunch of holes in the wall.

6. Secure your shelves to the wall

It’s important that these shelves are very well secured as you want to keep kitty safe.

Find a stud either by:

using the old knock trick (when you hear the deeper, less echo-y “thud”, you’re there)

by looking for nail holes that secured the wall to the stud

or get fancy and use a stud finder

The nice thing about using the 1×3 is you have some leeway on where you place your mounting screws. If you have a stud anywhere in the area you want to put them, definitely plan on drilling into this. If not, use anchors for a more secure shelf.

Grab a buddy to help you.

One person should hold the shelf while the other makes sure the shelf is level by simply laying your level on top of the shelf and adjusting it until the bubble is in the middle, then drill them into the wall, through the 1×3, by first drilling pilot holes and then screwing them in.

Tip: to hide the screw, you could cover it with wood putty and then stain or paint it, HOWEVER this will make it quite difficult if you ever want to remove them. I just went with a black screw that blends into the wood. Easy, peasy.

Scratching post

As I mentioned, we are in the process of redoing our bedroom. (Stay tuned for the final reveal!!)

In the process of laying out our vinyl floors over the old, gross, painted cork floors, we had to remove the scratching post so the floors could be laid properly.

To take it out, we simply unscrewed the bottom screws from the floor and the top from the ceiling. The top part was were screwed into anchors, so it was a little bit more tricky to take out , but once we were able to wiggle the post by sliding the bottom out, the anchors popped right out of the ceiling.

We filled the holes with spackle and sanded it down nicely so that new holes can be made in the spaces between the old ones. It was important to not use the same holes as we need the pole to be secure.

Check out our original post on how we made this thing as our guy LOVES IT!!! It has been a fantastic edition and he is very happy with it.

Before putting it back in, we wanted to change the old base as it was spray painted to match our old painted cork floors. We went with a brownish-black called Off Broadway. I got a sample of it for the cabinets, but it didn’t make the cut. This was a better application.

I just used an old brush, painters tape to avoid getting paint on the rope, and painted it out on the balcony so I wouldn’t make a mess. It needed a few coats but it covered pretty good.

Reattach pole

We purchased some hollow wall anchors to make sure the post is secure in the ceiling. To install, we put the pole where we wanted it and ensured it was level. Then with our driver, we made holes through the screw holes on the end cap into the ceiling.

Remove the pole and drill the holes larger to be able to fit the anchors in. Then place your anchors in the holes. You can use a hammer for this if they are being stubborn.

Then replace your pole in the same spot so that your holes line up and simply screw into the anchor.

Once your pole is secure on the ceiling, screw it in place on the floor as well. (You may want to adjust this technique if you have nicer floors than us. We weren’t that concerned.)

Ikea cabinet hack

All we did to update the cabinet was give it a really good clean, remove the old carpet (which would now be the side of the cabinet and was unnecessary) and we also moved his brush to the appropriate side.

I considered painting it, but for now the white works well.

Little man’s food and water live in one cubby and we put a bed in the other cubby and on top of the cabinet. He loves this thing as he is easily able to access his shelves, take naps and EAT! (His most favorite thing! haha)

I was considering wallpapering the inside for that little extra oomph but it probably won’t hold up well to his messy eating habits and potential spills. For now it works well.

Updating the litter box

We also gave a well needed update to his litter box bench.

You guys, we love this thing.

Most people have no idea that it’s a litter box, at least until we tell them that it is. (We could keep that info to ourselves but I think it’s just too cool to keep secret 😂).

It looks beautiful and functions incredibly well. We can fit two boxes inside (which now with only one cat is more than enough), and also holds his litter scoop.

Check out the post on how we made it here. It’s incredibly easy, cheap and will improve your quality of life with your cat. (Who wants nasty litter boxes hanging around out in the open? No one!)

So when updating the bedroom I knew I wanted to change the reddish stain it had. It worked really well in our apartment but never really matched in our bedroom, especially now with the new décor.

I’m no expert with painting furniture but it’s a relatively simple process and pretty much the same for any furniture update.

1. Sand

Give it a quick sand so the paint has something to hold on to.

I just went over it once with used a fine grit sand paper. I just recently got a sander for my birthday (thanks UB!! 😁) but you can totally do this by hand. It will just take a little longer.

Always wear a mask when sanding and work outside if possible. Those tiny particles are nasty things in the lungs!

Then wipe your piece down with a damp rag or paper towel to remove any dust.

2. Paint

The most fun part of painting is picking out colors. It’s also the most challenging for me but I think I nailed it with this one.

It’s called Dark Sage from Glidden (Home Depot). I absolutely love it and it looks so nice in the room and next to our brown couch.

I used a small roller for the majority of the piece, and an angled brush for the more intricate details, like around the hinges and in the corners.

I gave it two coats, allowing it to dry completely between each coat.

3. Poly

An excellent idea especially in this application where there will be increased dust (from all the litter) is to add a coat of polyurethane which will make it easier to clean.

Before using the poly, sand your piece again using a fine grit sand paper. This made me nervous but the poly needs something to hold onto.

Then wipe down the piece again with a damp rag.

Then apply the poly, working in the same direction (the direction of the grain if possible) and apply one light, even layer. A foam brush works great for this.

The poly goes on white but dries clear (don’t worry!)

Then allow it to dry, and you’re going to repeat the same steps for as many coats as you desire. The poly directions say three is ideal. I did two and it’s pretty darn good.

Sand, apply poly, allow to dry.

And this is the final product!!

Cat Toy Makeover

We also decided this would be a fantastic time to put in a little work updating some of our cat toys as well.

Our guy absolutely loves the spinning ball cat scratcher thing. Anyone else have these? We have three. Yes, it’s excessive, but we like to keep him happy and entertained. He is an indoor cat afterall.

The problem with them, is they’re SO bright. Like hot pink and electric blue. It’s too much.

Before we updated the room it was the least of our problems. But the last thing I wanted to do was bring those colorful things back in our nice, relaxing, neutral colored, now updated bedroom.

So we did what we do with everything: spray paint!

We simply removed the scratching post and ball, took the plastic piece outside on an old piece of cardboard and sprayed away.

It needed two or three coats to really cover all the pink in all those crevices. Make sure you spray from several angles.
And always use quick, light sweeping motions when spray painting, It’s better to do several light coats than one heavy coat because it won’t dry properly.

We used a nice black spray paint that fits in so nicely in the bedroom. The type of spray paint we used says it’s good for plastic. We’ll see how long it lasts but for now it looks great.

Now that it’s painted it just looks like a beautiful neutral accent that keeps our cat happy. What’s better than that??

Recap

These projects were so simple and created a totally updated space that fits in with the new bedroom décor. Little man loves it and so do we!

So if you want a simple, inexpensive DIY to get rid of some of those old cat trees and scratching posts, I highly recommend making your own kitty jungle gym!

It is such an easy DIY which your pals will love and will bring a little more beauty to your pet friendly home.

Questions? We’re here!

Leave a comment and let us know how you help your indoor cats stay active!

How to Make a DIY Staircase for a Kitty Jungle Gym (Plus updating cat items for a more beautiful home!)

The plan: