Ikea hack: Stuva litterbox camouflage.

I’ve been buried in home improvement hell for a while now. I decided while Hubby was gone I was going to paint and re-floor the living room.

Then I busted my knee, and a dear friend of ours died, and my steam has sort of…fizzled.

But at least one third of my living room looks great. LOL

Well, we have cats. Seven, to be exact, in addition to the three dogs and two birds. We have litter pans all over, including one in the crate the nearly-grown kittens were confined to at night and while we were out of the house.

Eh, not so much.

Yes, they’re the dome-type, so it’s not so bad. But I’m sooo over having litter pans “out” in the house. Yet with that many cats, one central litter pan will NOT work for a variety of reasons. I’d looked at some of those pre-made “litter pan houses” that look like furniture, but I wasn’t impressed with them (or their prices).

Then I stumbled across www.ikeahackers.net.

*Cue trumpets!*

There were a TON of ideas on how to hide litter pans. (And I’m guessing if keeping food away from dogs is an issue for you, you could also use them for that purpose as well.)

So I dragged my butt over to Ikea in Tampa yesterday (my first time there). Used lunch to help quell the panic attack at the sheer size of the place before I started my journey through the bowels of Scandinavian furniture hell.

My problem was, I wanted EVERYTHING. LOL I’d find one good idea, then discard it for another…and another…and…

You get the idea.

Ironically, I settled on one idea for the living room rather quickly, a Besta shelf unit and doors that I’ll add a cat-flap door to the side. The second one, a smaller one for the dining room, eluded me until literally almost the end. I got a small Stuva frame, the Stuva Grundlig drawer and drawer front, and knew it’d work.

It wasn’t until after I got home I realized I should have also picked up a shelf. *head/desk*

So that means another trip to Ikea in the next few days. (Oh, darn. LOL Although, seriously, next time I will take Hubby with me. I was overwhelmed by the time I hit the warehouse part.)

Dewey checking out the new pan.

I had originally planned to put the drawer in the top and use the bottom for the litter pan, and hide it with a piece of fabric or something. Then I decided to put the drawer in the bottom, which makes cleaning the litter pan super-easy (If your cats kick the drawer out, just add a magnetic cabinet latch to the sides to give it extra hold.) I’ll put the shelf in to take up some of the gap and hold cat food cans, and I can still staple a piece of screening or fabric or something to hide the gap if I want.

Assembly time: 30 minutes, approximately.
Cost: $54 (and I think the shelf is like $5 or so)
Difficulty: Easy-peasy.

Compare that to over $100 some of those places want for the pre-made litter pan houses. Yes, it’s definitely worth doing it myself. LOL