Akurum cat cabinets

Materials: Akurum 21″ base cabinets w/ drawers, Abstrakt doors, Svep handles

Description: My wife and I have been wanting to hack Ikea for a long time, in an effort to wrangle our cats’ litter and food (not only to keep the house cleaner, but also to keep our dog from grabbing late-night litter snacks). Knowing that cats can get picky when it comes to where they do their business, I wanted to make sure that they wouldn’t have any less room to use the box than they had previously with their covered litter pans.

After constructing two Akurum base cabinets (making sure they were wide enough to accommodate our largest litter pan), I used the jigsaw to cut a 7″ x 9″ hole out of each one. Originally I was going to make the holes on the outer-facing sides of the cabinets. However, I was fortunate to stumble upon an “as-is” countertop at Ikea for $30. Aligning the cabinets to the edges of the countertop allowed me to make the portholes on the interior sides; this way I don’t have to worry about what other furniture surrounds them and the portholes are always accessible.

As a bonus, I picked up a spice rack (Rationell Variela) that fits perfectly inside the cabinet; it’s the new cat food trough!

~ Steve