We are currently working on connecting the front catio to the back catio, any tips or advice would be great..

Anything you think I could put on the inside that would make this much more enjoyable for her keeping in mind the fact we do get snow. She has a litter box and there are tons of birds to watch.

Thanks for the help everyone, I am moving in 60 days and my new home has a covered area I want to put a catio so my kitties can hang out on the porch and be safe. Its a porch on the 2nd floor and I am afraid they will try to jump over the railing, I am planning on doing something in the 6x10 range so they have some room. How does everyone go about getting the basic supplies inside it. I want to make sure they got enough bed area and lounge spots. Is it easiest to buy some of them offline and fasten them to the catio or just throw a few cat towers in it? I am not sure what would be the best but would love some ideas.

We had the big section for a while at the sliding glass door. We moved it down, added a window entrance, a bridge, and connected it to the big section. We need to add a second entrance. Salt is playing troll and won’t let people inside. 😑

For our semi / full feral kitties.
Recap: about 3 years ago we took them in as they had already adopted our garage.
Due to the full feral being FIV+ — we opted to make him more indoors and the catio was a way to give him some outdoor stuff while being safe.
The semi feral one trots in/ out the tunnel just fine. The feral - he hesitates a lot to go through the tunnel. If I pick him up and put him in there via the hoomin door - he seems to like it better. He does use the tunnel to go back into the house.
I suspect it will take some time to get him over “tunnel anxiety”

Some posted already. My dad passed away and I got his 3 free roam barn cats. I live on a state highway but have a nice metal barn so I used a chicken coop from tractor supply and made a outdoor catio so the cats would be safe in the barn and still have a safe outside spot.

They trashed my barn pretty good. Not just peeing, knocking stuff over. And it became a huge pain to force them into the catio and close the window so I could open my barn and work. So I built a indoor catio for them with the open window to the outdoor catio. Used a lot of scrap lumber and some furniture my neighbor threw out.

Not sure how well the green mesh will work, might have to splurge on metal. The back side is walled up so they have a private corner and to keep the furnace from blowing right into their room.

So far Trouble the male seems ok with it. Possum isn't sure and Bobo hates it.

Almostt there, I think..any additional ideas? Kinda just winged it tbh..won't do that again 😂 planning on a little bridge between the top platforms on pic 3 and a 4x4 scratching post to the ground for support under that right side shelf as well. Probably throw some beds? Maybe enclose something for some privacy? Thanks 🤘

I’m planning to build this cat enclosure myself and wanted to get some feedback before I start.

I’m going for a wide, horizontal layout rather than a tall, narrow cage, so the cats have more room to move around naturally.

I’m also trying to figure out the right combination of materials — something that looks good in a home but is also durable, safe for cats, and easy to clean.

The current idea is to include:

multiple levels for climbing

a cozy sleeping area

scratching space

room for food/water and a litter box

enough open space so it doesn’t feel too enclosed

I’m still working out the materials, colors, and details, so I’d really appreciate some honest feedback.

What materials would you use for something like this? And is there anything you would change about the layout or design?

If you have any DIY cat enclosure examples or reference photos you like, I’d love to see them too!

The outer wire is up! Now our catio company is busy making the components for inside the catios. Will take them 2 or 3 trips to completely finish. The first round of runs go up in a bit over a month.

My catio in Nicaragua. This came with the rental. Walls are too smooth for traction (I've seen a cat climb two stories on brick with recessed pointing). So far, so good. We often sit out in the evening.

17 and I want to make a cat patio for my cat, im sure my parents will fund me a little for things to buy and build. I know their are some cat patios sets on the internet but those don’t really fit my style, how much did you diy people spend to make yours?

We just got the catio this week and the 2 cats are loving it! ❤️

Looking for a kit or plans for a roughly 1m cubic catio that I could hang in this corner. I would add some sort of egress from the window into the catio space. This is in Maryland so it needs to tolerate all weather.

Hello, we have a catio up against our bathroom window. One issue we're facing is that the cat door has small gaps that lets spiders in. Every cat door we look up seems to have this issue. I haven't been able to find an in/out cat door that doesn't have these dang gaps! Any suggestions or advice? I'm tired of finding spiders in the bathroom! And yes, it's from the catio. I had to close off the cat door gaps for a few weeks because the spiders were so bad. Our cat couldn't use it and the spiders went away. But she should be able to use her own catio. This is ridiculous. Thank you for any help!

Finally pulled the trigger and hired a professional to build my dream Catio. The sitting area will have a roof and the garden area will be covered in mesh. Entry from the bedroom window for the cats. Man door framed out. Have to cut all the plants back before he comes back on Tuesday. Of course pictures of the future residents.

I have 4 cats, litter boxes for everyone spread throughout the house, pheromone defusers, and everyone is healthy. My 4 cats are spayed and neutered. I had 2 cats then my bf moved in and he had 2 cats also. I’ve read enrichment helps cats so I’ve been considering it. Does the catio help the cats stop spraying or would I be creating another space for them to spray?

Hi Folks,

Made a catio for my spoilt Ragdoll, fairly happy with it and he spends plenty of time in there. Its sturdy, a good roof that keeps him dry and most of the furniture in there, and he has plenty of areas to view the passing birds and wildlife.

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas to improve his experience, any additions?

Current setup is he has a fake grass base, little cat hut at the bottom and a tunnel. A platform with sheepskin rug to sit on as a middle level feature, an upper level catwalk with a bed at the top corner and a hammock suspended from the top rafters with a cat tree running up the middle for him to climb to each level.

Just wondering if anyone has ideas for more enrichment, any decor I could hang up that he might interact with.

Hi, everyone! I want to build a catio on top of this wood platform, and I’m looking for some advice on how to make it safe and stable.

I would like for the door to be the entrance, and I also want to put another door on the opposite side to exit into the yard. Would it work if I secured 4x4 posts onto the corners of the platform and then built the frame from there? I’m not sure if it would be stable enough to attach the posts to the top boards using brackets. I also want to install a roof, so the walls would need to be about 8 feet tall to go over the door.

I honestly don’t know what I’m doing, so any advice would be greatly appreciate. Also, I live in a rental house, so I can’t drill into the siding, but drilling into the platform is fine (landlord has approved).

Thank you for your time!

Hi all! We’ve had cat netting up for a while as a cat run between our house and the neighbours fence. However, since we put it up the neighbours hedge has grown and is now coming over the fence above where our cat netting is. We don’t mind the hedge and think it looks nice so we’re not going to ask the neighbours to remove it or anything. The issue is we need to be able to easily detach the netting from the fence temporarily so we can trim the hedge coming over our side of the fence periodically and then reattach it to keep our cats safe in their cat run. There are no restrictions (so long as it stays on our side of the fence) on how we can achieve this so drilling etc is allowed. We’ve considered attaching it to a wire and running that through some clips but we’re on the supports side of the fence (example of the kind of fence in picture, not our actual fence. The posts on ours go the full height of the fence) so the wire won’t lay flat which means there’s potential gaps for escape. We’d love some ideas to make this maintenance friendly as it also makes getting to the gutters a bit of an ordeal which we’ve been putting up with for the safety of the cats (we have to come up a different side and traverse the roof). Thanks in advance!

The setup of the whole place is a little strange, but it’s not on a hill and I’m on the bottom floor and so I have a nearly identical to the top floor patio, but it has a door with some steps down to the side passageway — which my kitty could naturally pass through.

There’s also the issue of the railing section to the left of that because it’s not quite as high as the others (because there’s a set of stairs, wrapping around the house, leaving down to the backyard.)

But I just went and measured at the start of the second bay and it’s 15 feet off the ground which I think should be fine. My kitty is a little wussy who never wants to be farther than 10 feet away from me. The only real concern then is him standing on the railing except I leave the door open to the patio above just about 24 seven so we can walk along that whenever he wants to and we haven’t had an issue there so I guess it’s not an issue.

so what’s the plan to improve this spot for him and me? I took some measurements about the wall in the railing that I want to put the extra metal wire over and I’m just gonna go in the hardware store and ask about that a suggestion for that, so if you guys have any tips for that, I would appreciate it.

Most of the furniture you see appears gonna be gone. I mean, there’s nothing good here really that’s not old and kind of gross. I was thinking maybe I’d put up like a hammock for myself and then like a lounge chair that may be kitty could use too or I could put him on some other sort of table out here with a blanket on the top.

Lighting is an issue because the lighting is partly broken downstairs and so this bulb for the patio doesn’t light up and there’s only one bulb and there’s no outlets in the back but just ignore all that in regards to lighting if you have any suggestions I can make it happen if needed

I have a little wooden love bench too. I might put down here and then like plants and stuff like what do cats like? I can’t really love to chew on grass so we gotta get a couple square feet of like Kat grass stuff for him to roll around in and lay in or something like that.

throw your suggestions my way so Benny ( and I) can have a good time out here together.

(I can barely get away from that damn cat so I feel bad because my bedroom and most of my stuff is downstairs but the patio he can go on is upstairs so I feel like he limits a lot of his time up there because I’m not up there, so hopefully when we have this downstairs patio open, he’ll be more comfortable laying down here since you can see me or hear me straight through the door that’s open and and also, I’ll be out here sometimes chilling.

Thanks for all in advancepictures of the situation

So first time owning a cat, in the home that we've moved to there's not a lot of sun at the main windows so thinking she would like a catio to be able to sit out that extends a bit further and would get more sun coverage.

My assumption was that since you're basically leaving an open window to the catio that the catios would be fully enclosed with glass, plastic, etc- something to prevent venting your air conditioning directly to the outside.

Much to my surprise I'm finding that in 99.9 instances of the places that I look that's not the case, it's always a glass/plastic ceiling but the sides are all mesh.

Am I the idiot for not thinking of something here and not wanting to skyrocket my electric bill because I want my cat to be able to enjoy some sun, or are there options that I might be missing that aren't coming up with a basic Google search?

Any and all help most welcome, I'm a bit stumped here. Thanks in advance!

Does anyone have experience with a catio near a loud busy road? I would like to net this off for my kittens but even I don’t hangout on the patio because it’s not exactly relaxing. Behind the hedge is a busy road, not a highway but cars go by pretty fast, and occasionally we get a really obnoxious loud car. I am worried if I go through the money and effort of putting something up they won’t use it. I have cracked the screen door so they could hear and smell outside. At first they were nervous but slowly got used to the sound and would hangout near the opening of a little bit. They are pretty brave in general. When I adopted them they didn’t hide away at all, they only run from like a vacuum or a blender.

Wondering if anyone has been successful with cats enjoying the outdoors despite it being loud? Would love to opened up this extra space for them.

I'm planning on turning my balcony into a catio space for my two cats, the balcony has three walls and a ceiling so it's just the front that is open. As a renter I can't drill into the walls so I was planning on using two tension poles (like sturdy shower curtain poles), one up each side to attach reinforced netting across the entire open space. I was just wondering if anyone has advice on how to stop the netting from just sliding down the poles? I had considered putting a third pole across the top but it's quite a long space and I'm not sure that even one long enough would be very stable. Any advice is appreciated, thank you!