Tips for wall shelves

[twichl]

I want to get a cat super highway without spending $50 per shelf for a carpet covered monstrosity. Instead, I want to have a lot of shelves and use double sided tape/velcro to keep the carpet on top. I just don't know what I should be looking for when it comes to the dimensions of the shelves and the weight limits I should shoot for. Also what should I avoid?

 

[1CatOverTheLine]

 
I want to get a cat super highway without spending $50 per shelf for a carpet covered monstrosity. Instead, I want to have a lot of shelves and use double sided tape/velcro to keep the carpet on top. I just don't know what I should be looking for when it comes to the dimensions of the shelves and the weight limits I should shoot for. Also what should I avoid?

First off, the cats will NOT pay any tolls.  Just sayin'.

When I make window sill extensions, I use three-quarter inch plywood and low face-weight carpet remnants, wrapping the carpeting entirely around the "shelf" and stapling it underneath using an upholster's staple gun (a Bostitch).  When it's upholstered, I add a sheet of heavy cardboard, used as a form, and wrapped with cambric - just as you might see on upholstered furniture.

For free shelves, be certain that at least two of the brackets are firmly anchored in studs (or three brackets, if the shelf's over four feet in length), and use screws which reach at least one and one half inches into the studs (for most applications over drywall, a 2 inch #8 drywall screw is fine; for applications over lath-and-plaster, a 2½ inch screw is safer).

Tip: because of the amount of force exerted on the shelf by cats leaping off into thin air, keep the shelves under 15 inches wide.  A cat sitting on the outer edge of a twenty-two inch wide shelf exerts roughly twice the force of one at the edge of a fifteen inch shelf.  Remember Archimedes' remarks about that lever.

Avoid: chipcore / flakeboard / OSB, owed to formaldehyde offgassing.

.

 

[twichl]

Thank you! This will be a huge a help!

 

[basscat]

Screw some milk crates to the walls.

 

[lalagimp]

We used Ikea shelves and brackets. There's one plain shelf I'm looking at on the website that says it holds 22 lbs. You have to look at the brackets too. We used  to have shelves all over the edge of the ceiling in the living room at the old house. I had both Ikea and ContempoCat. ContempoCat was doing a promotion. I nailed carpet onto the ikea shelves and the other shelves had their own texture for traction.

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• lalagimp
• Mar 10, 2017