My bedroom is barely thirteen square metres, and for the first year Mimi lived here, her floor-standing cat tree ate a quarter of it, leaving me shuffling sideways between the bed and the wardrobe. The walls, meanwhile, stood completely empty, which felt absurd once I realised cats naturally want to be up high anyway. My landlord allows drilling as long as I fill the holes when I leave, so I spent one spring weekend learning how to find wall studs, and since then Mimi’s whole playground has lived on the walls. These ten sets are the ones I built or bought for my own room, and each one gave me back floor space I thought I had lost for good.
1. Pastel Pink & White Cloud Staircase
The first wall set I ever installed was a staircase of cloud-shaped steps in pastel pink and white, five boards climbing the wall beside my wardrobe from about forty centimetres off the floor up to the top of the wardrobe itself. I cut the cloud shapes from eighteen-millimetre plywood with a jigsaw, sanded the edges round, painted them with two coats of washable wall paint, and fixed each one into a stud with two long screws. Self-adhesive carpet strips keep Mimi from slipping, and the run cost about thirty-five euros.
Mimi ignored the staircase for three days, then one evening I found her asleep on the top cloud. I learned to space the steps no more than thirty centimetres apart vertically: my first layout had one forty-centimetre gap she clearly did not trust, and I had to add a middle step. She now runs up those clouds every morning before breakfast, and the floor below them stays completely free.
2. Clear Acrylic Space-Capsule Bubble Nest
The bubble nest was my one splurge, a clear acrylic dome that bolts to the wall like a little space capsule, with a round cushion inside, and I bought it second-hand for fifty euros after watching the price of a new one for months. It mounts on a plywood plate spreading the load across two studs, which matters because dome plus a four-kilo cat is heavier than it looks, and I hand-tighten those bolts monthly. From the bed I can see Mimi curled inside, watching the room from her own bubble.
Acrylic scratches: after a year of claws, mine has fine marks that catch the light, though Mimi does not mind them. I clean it with a soft microfibre cloth and lukewarm water only, and I keep it out of direct afternoon sun, because the curved plastic focuses sunlight onto the cushion. If you buy one, mount it where you can see inside easily, because half the joy is watching your cat enjoy it.
3. Natural Sisal Bridge & Suspension Highway
The sisal bridge was the set that made Mimi genuinely athletic, a rope bridge of wooden slats wrapped in sisal, about a hundred and twenty centimetres long above my desk, connecting a shelf to a perch. I built it from pine slats, sisal rope, and two brackets rated for fifteen kilos each, for under forty euros. The sisal gives her claws grip, which is the entire point, because a smooth bridge is a bridge a cat will not use twice.
I hung it slightly downhill, about five centimetres lower at the far end, since cats prefer a gentle slope to a flat crossing, and Mimi took to it immediately. The bridge sways slightly when she crosses, which worried me until I realised the flex is what makes it feel natural to her, like a branch. I rewrap the sisal every six months, twenty minutes of work, and check the brackets at the same time, because a loose bracket on a bridge is the one failure you do not want.
4. Hexagonal Honeycomb Modular Wall
Six hexagonal boxes in pale wood arranged like a cluster above my reading chair, each about thirty-five centimetres across, with open fronts so Mimi can step from one to the next. I bought them as a flat-pack set for around sixty euros, and the modular design sold me: I rearranged the cluster twice before finding the layout she used, moving one box lower after realising she never jumped to the highest one. Each box is screwed into a stud.
At first I lined the boxes with a fluffy blanket, which slid around and made her nervous, so I swapped it for thin felt pads glued in place, and she settled in immediately. Now one box is her nap spot, one holds a cushion, and the rest are stepping stones to the top of the wardrobe. If you buy a set like this, start with four boxes rather than six: you can always add more, and a smaller cluster is easier to anchor on a rented wall.
5. Minimalist White & Gold Floating Wall Ledges
The white and gold ledges are the prettiest set in my room, five slim floating shelves in matte white with thin gold brackets, running in a staggered line from the door frame toward the window, for about forty-five euros including brackets. I spaced them thirty centimetres apart both ways, giving Mimi a comfortable zigzag climb, and topped each shelf with a narrow cork strip for grip, because the white laminate underneath was far too slippery alone. From the doorway the shelves look like a design feature, not pet furniture.
Gold brackets sound delicate, but these are solid steel with a gold finish, and I tested each shelf by pressing down hard with both hands before letting Mimi near them. She uses the ledges as her morning patrol route to the window perch, and the staggered layout means she never makes a long leap. I dust them weekly, and after a year the white paint still looks fresh, apart from one scuffed corner I touched up with a paint pen.
6. The Moon & Stars Celestial Climbing Nook
The moon and stars nook is the set my niece always asks about, a crescent moon shelf in soft yellow with three small star-shaped perches around it, mounted above my bedside table, where Mimi can survey the whole room. I cut the moon from plywood and painted it warm yellow, and added an LED strip behind it on a timer, so the nook glows gently. The stars are simple wooden shapes with carpet tops, fixed into studs; the set cost about forty euros.
I mounted the moon first and watched for a week before adding the stars, to learn which way Mimi approached, and that patience paid off: she comes from the wardrobe side, so the stars now form a natural path from there. The LED strip runs on a plug timer, switches off at eleven, and stays dim, because a cat’s eyes are sensitive and a bright glow would ruin the cosy effect. She sleeps in the moon at least three nights a week, curled into the curve.
7. Boho Rattan & Wicker Woven Hammock Pods
The hammock pods are Mimi’s softest wall spot, three woven rattan pods lined with washable cotton, hung from sturdy hooks at different heights opposite my bed. I bought the pods for about twenty-five euros each, and the hooks are rated for twenty kilos, far more than Mimi weighs, but I never trust a hook until I have hung my full weight from it. The cotton liners come out for washing, which matters: a hammock slept in daily needs washing every two weeks or it smells.
Rattan looks light and airy, but it can creak, and the first pod I hung creaked every time Mimi stepped in, which put her off for days until I tightened the cords and added a felt pad where the pod meets the wall. That fix changed everything: she now rotates between the three pods daily, choosing the sunniest in the afternoon. If your cat is nervous about wobbly things, hang the lowest pod first and let her claim it before adding higher ones.
8. Cyber-Cat Neon LED Integrated Track
The neon track sounds like a gimmick, but it is simply a climbing route with an LED strip along its edge, and it has become Mimi’s favourite evening playground, because cats are more active at dusk and the soft light seems to invite her up. I built the route from three shelves and a scratching board, then ran a warm-white LED strip along the underside of the top shelf in its own adhesive channel so it never dangles, on a dimmer plug. The whole addition cost about twenty euros on top of the shelves.
I chose warm white rather than colour-changing LEDs deliberately, because flashing colours would stress a cat and tire me too, and the dimmer keeps it at a gentle glow. The strip sits in an aluminium channel, which keeps it cool and safe from claws, and I check the channel ends monthly. Mimi now does her evening zoomies along the lit route instead of across my bed, a benefit I had not predicted.
9. Light Birch & Canvas Fabric Cat Wall Runner
The wall runner is the longest single piece in my room, a light birch plank about two metres long with a canvas sling beneath it, mounted above the radiator, for roughly fifty euros in board, canvas, and brackets. The plank gives Mimi a proper walkway, while the canvas sling hangs just below it like a hammock, so she can walk on top or lounge underneath, and she genuinely uses both, walking the plank in the morning and sleeping in the sling in the afternoon.
Canvas needs care wood does not, and I machine-wash the sling on a gentle cycle every three weeks, keeping a spare so the runner is never out of action. The birch board is sealed with clear matte varnish, which stops claw marks sinking in, and I recoat it once a year, which takes an evening. Mounting a two-metre board taught me to use a spirit level obsessively, because even a slight slope makes a cat distrust the whole run.
10. Corner-Wrap Continuous Wall Highway
The corner-wrap highway tied everything together, a continuous run of shelves turning the corner between two walls, so Mimi can travel from wardrobe wall to window wall without ever touching the floor. I built it from six shelves, twenty to thirty centimetres deep, fixed into studs on both walls, with the corner shelf cut at forty-five degrees so the turn feels natural rather than abrupt. It took a full Saturday to measure and mount, and cost about seventy euros in boards and brackets.
The corner shelf is the piece most people get wrong: a square corner forces an awkward turn, while the angled shelf lets her flow around it like on a real branch. I watched Mimi use it for a week before calling it finished, and moved one shelf three centimetres lower after seeing her hesitate at a gap that looked fine to me but felt too far to her. Now her whole wall route is one loop, and my bedroom floor finally belongs to me again.
Moving Mimi’s world onto the walls was the best space decision I made in this flat, and it cost far less than a bigger room would have. Start with one short run of shelves, watch how she uses it for a week, and let her habits tell you where the next piece should go.