When keeping a cat indoors it is vital to provide as much enrichment as possible. In general, I am in favor of allowing cats to go outside whenever possible. However, there are many situations and apartments where that is not possible. I live on the 5th floor and underneath my apartment is a parking lot and busy streets.
Cats are animals and all animals require sunlight to thrive. You see how cats love to bath in a sunny window. Pets need fresh air and the sun just as much as we do.
I’ve made my balcony as cat-friendly as I possibly can. I have DIYed it on my own so it clearly not professionally done. My balcony has just been repainted by my landlord and I had to take all of the netting down. Afterwards I hired a company to put up a new net and my balcony has got a complete makeover, which we are so happy with! I will be posting the after photos soon. But first I wanted to share what it looked like before.
First thing was to secure it with a net to make sure there are no falls nor jumps. I put up wooden blinds to give me privacy in the areas where I have direct eye sight with neighbors. I attached the netting with zip ties and wiring to whatever possible. This gives the added security and gives me peace of mind they are safe.
I have two cats therefore I have two litter boxes (actually the rule of thumb would be to have 3 litter boxes, however in a small apartment, I just can’t) a large DIY litter box outside and the Pidan Igloo box in the kitchen.
I searched for a cat tree that was safe and sturdy to put outside but didn’t have much luck. Finally I made a DIY cat tower using a piece of furniture I also found on the street. This gives the cats some height to have different views of the city and bird watch.
This tower was made out of plastic so a year later I replaced this plastic DIY cat tree with a DIY metal one from Ikea.
I have a collection of wicker baskets and wicker outdoor furniture I have found, mostly on the street. The cats love the texture of the wicker which they use to scratch as well as sleep in or on.
Do you have a cat-friendly balcony or catio? Let me know in the comments or tag me on Instagram.
Below is a photo during the painting and construction. Stay tuned for the After: Cat-friendly Balcony Makeover.
We have a single family home but I did not want my cat roaming, he’s not that bright and there are a lot of cars. :) So I built a “catio” based on an IKEA hack of a bookcase. 2ft x 5ft x 5ft using 2×3’s & 1/2 in plywood with 3 shelves and the base as play/napping areas. I’ve never built anything like it before but he egresses thru a window with a cat door in it and he uses it EVERYDAY. I’ve got a couple of bird feeders just beyond it to provide a little bird TV and I’m building a ‘hammock’ for it as well. Apparently its a major creative outlet for me. Anyway, I love it and he loves it, its so nice to have!
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That sounds excellent! Your cat is very lucky to have you :-) It makes me so happy to hear about people creating ways for their cat to enjoy the fresh air and sun. Which Ikea bookshelf did you use? If you are on Instagram please tag me, I would love to see :-) @meowlifestyle
The cool thing is that your landlord lets you do all this, because so many rented flats don’t allow that.
I live on the first floor (I own our apartment, no landlord, so I can pretty much do what I want) and have 3 indoor cats, and in the past I have had one side – where there is a direct view to the neighbour’s balcony – closed with an aluminium trellis and a window, plus a pergola, which was costly of course, but I don’t regret spending the money. However, now that I have a new young cat, Callisto (8 months now and cheeky as hell), I also had to close the other side of the balcony because he’s a little wild one and has already fallen off the balcony once. This is of course no problem for cats and he was perfectly fine, but they do have a Podenco dog downstairs, and this breed is a hunting dog with hunting instincts!
So I made a thin wooden frame that fits into that space, stapled thin wire netting (which is fairly invisible and you can look through it) to the frame and put it up on the side, fitting it to the pergola with wire, because I do want to be able to take it off for cleaning purposes – we get a lot of dust and sand blowing around here in Lanzarote. The cats can still site on the ledge, but they can’t fall off now.
There are also pillars that look very pretty on the front of the balcony, and my old cats Spider and Lugosi always used to sit between the pillars to look down from the balcony, but I also closed these with the same kind of wire netting, what with the young and loony Callisto. It’s a shame I can’t post a picture here, because it’s hard to explain how it looks. ;)
Can’t wait for the “After” photos. But your own DIY is great anyway, because the cats don’t care how it actually looks (that’s only for *us*) as long as it’s safe for them. :)
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I didn’t ask permission. I just did it. I couldn’t risk them saying no. It sounds like you did a lot of work for your kitties. Balcony life is important for our cats :-)
Ah, but good that they are ok with it! :)
And yes, balcony life is important for them, but it has to be made safe by their servant hoomins!