Get the Scoop on High-Design Litter Boxes

Natalie The scoop free litter box is great. Ours was taken out by a lightning storm. So use a surge protector. It did have the negative side effect of making one of our cats extremely picky. If the little bin filled up and the slightest crack opened up he would do his business in front of the box to let us know it was time to empty the box.

lbabs I have the Scoop Free Self-Cleaning Litter Box and it's the best! No more scooping litter daily. Just a once a week changing of the litter tray. I love it!

creeser Thanks for posting these litter box ideas. We're building a new house and I've already been thinking of the best place to put the litter box. Love the ideas of it going under the sink in the laundry room.

waahila Love the "purr-fectly" terrific ideas. >^..^

Jean Corey Thank you so much for these good ideas. We put our kitchen litter box in an enclosure in the laundry alcove, with a tambour door on it, in case we want to close it off. We also put the cat food in a similar enclosure in the kitchen.

Becky Harris Wow, thanks so much for the information about the scoop free, and I never would have thought of the surge protector - that's such good information to have! As a Maine Coon, Bubbs is quite a voluptuous lady and has kind of outgrown her litter box - I'm on a search for the best solution for her at the moment.

bluejeanroy You have to make sure your cat isn’t the skittish kind like mine when using the self-cleaning type box. She was close to the box when it went into cleaning mode and it scared her to death. She wouldn’t go near it after that and took to using my bath tub (Yuck!) I Had to go back to the old fashioned type of box for her.

fishon just built kitchen pantry cabinet around litter box by modifiying doors when doors come in ill post picture

1948baby Years ago I had a male cat who, despite entering the litter box, would miss and urine would end up behind him outside of the box. I solved that problem by getting a box with higher sides and putting it in my bath tub. Even now and a few cats later, the box is always in the tub. The tub holds stray litter and with a towel or rug on the entry edge of the tub, even the litter that sticks to their paws can be shook back into the box. I think of it as a box within a box, and any misses are cleaned very easily.

kitter Yuk. Why would anyone want to put a cat box inside a wall or cabinet? It would just make it a lot harder to clean up properly. Also if the odor is confined, the box will probably be cleaned less often. This is unhealthy and unpleasant for Kitty. Would you like to "go" in a small room full of fecal odor?

ladyeyes I had one of the auto-scooping litterboxes, and I can tell you it didn't work very well with more than one cat. Plus it was noisy. Plus I have one cat that would always manage to step on the buttons, so the auto-sleep would either be off or the time would be incorrect so it didn't sleep at the right time. So we would get woken up with this noisy thing going off at least once per week.

kateskouros we planned to cut an entry from our mudroom through to the garage. keeping the box out there would be a great way of keeping odor out of the house. but unfortunately our kitty passed before we had the chance. RIP TAYLOR. we love you.

patscats2 Those are great. Love the ottoman cut out.

lizstamey Last year at a remodeler's home tour I saw the best idea ever. The homeowner had a laundry/office adjacent to the garage. They constructed an attractive kitty door in a cabinet and the litter box was kept in the garage.

Becky Harris I love the garage idea; that is genius. Now if only I had a garage...

davidbeil We have the Litter Robot, which we've used for 5 years with no problems. It works for our two Siamese rescues, and we empty the convenient waste drawer once a week. Of course it does look like something from space, but it's particularly useful if you go out of town often. http://www.litter-robot.com/

bettyinmunich Cat boxes can be unsightly, smelly, and messy affairs. If you have children or dogs you don't want them snooping around the box either. One of my favorite websites (well besides Houzz), Ikeahacker.com has some ingenious and inexpensive ways that people have hacked various IKEA products to completely hide the cat litter box that I thought I would share. It makes the litter box dilema seem quite manageable. Check them out:

http://www.ikeahackers.net/2009/03/flaren-stealth-cat-litter-box.html
http://www.ikeahackers.net/2010/03/hol-for-kitty.html
http://www.ikeahackers.net/2007/08/simple-ideas-for-cat-litter-boxes.html
http://www.ikeahackers.net/2009/05/put-cat-litter-box-at-entryway.html
http://www.ikeahackers.net/2010/09/effektively-hiding-cat-box.html
http://www.ikeahackers.net/2009/07/ikea-ps-locker-into-litter-box.html

We keep our cat box in the bathroom in the bathtub. Before you all say eewwww, we are strictly shower people, so the bathtub sits unused anyways. I took apart a shoe rack and used the shelves which fit perfectly across the tub, covered them with a towel and it looks like one of those shelves you might use while taking a bath, and it sorta hides the box. Cat likes the privacy, clean up is quick and easy (we use silica crystals so the wet gets absorbed into the crystals only clean up is the solids) and there is very little Litter tracking as whatever she kicks out of the box stays in the tub which we just rinse away. No smell or fuss. So it's not as clever as some of the ideas above, but it does the job. (Of course, this might not work for you if you use your tub on a regular basis).

megphillips611 My parents bought a VERY high end scoop free automatic litter box. It's literally completely hands off. No emptying. No cleaning. No filter replacing. Its a dome shaped box and the litter that comes with it is a washable litter. The box gets hooked up to a water pipe in the laundry room (theirs is under the laundry room sink) and the box detects when there is a mess in the litter and it moves the automatic arm to sift it out and then has a separate compartment that cleans and dries the litter and puts it back in fresh for the cats. The only problem is that now that one of their 2 cats is getting older, she is getting grumpy and jumpy and the sounds that she hears coming from the litter box scare her. So sometimes she will just pee in the corner on the tile.

Becky Harris Meg, I guess no matter how high-end and technological we get, the cat's just gonna pee in the corner sometimes!

Pascale We're planning to build a new home and I'm looking forward to having a built in litter box in the laundry room. Currently we are lucky to have an outdoor closet that our cat can access through a kitty door located in our powder room. (I wanted to buy something bigger than a standard kitty litter box so I bought a large plastic tub from the garden center of my local big box store. It's a heavy duty pond liner, with slightly slanted sides, so it's easy to clean and has held up well to all the scratching.)

My vet was telling me she loved her automatic cleaning box until her cat became too fond of watching it work. Her kitty would jump in and jump out, then sit and watch the rake do it's job, and then jump in and out again, and again, etc.. Very annoying at 3:00am! :-)

riddledeb I have 2 cats - one would use it, other would not. The one that would, did her business, got out and waited the time for the scoop to activate and then swat at it. Pretty funny!

Carl Borsing We have 6 cats, so after our 4 automatic litter boxes quit one after the other. we switched to LitterKwitter (a system assisting in training cats to use your normal toilet) and are currently on training phase one. We're not going back, since it will work with patience... Oh by the way our last working "automatic" litter box just broke down :o)

lalea We are in the planning phases of remodeling and have plans to incorporate a litter box under the utility sink. When I was looking for a litter box, I wanted to get a self-cleaning box but did not have electrical access to where we currently keep the box so we opted for the Omega Roll and Clean box. It's much easier and faster to clean. Just roll it and the clumps get sifted through then rolled into a pull out drawer!

dawnwinds58 The Omega Roll and Clean does not need power or batteries; it doesn't need liners or any accessories. Lightning isn't an issue. If anything, just be sure the top latches when you put it togther and make sure you have a litter collection pad under it to stop litter-pawprints from happening, and use the best scoopable litter you can. They are not created equally. The Omega is simple enough and easy enough for a child to care for their own cat. We have one rescue partially paralyzed who is 100% inside cat. The others will scratch at the door to be let out for potty-emergencies.

Carla Aston | Interior Designer Thanks for posting the pic of one of my projects. This was a remodel for a catlover. The homeowner had an open area for a knee space that she didn't use. We added the cabinetry to match the rest and made the opening in the side wall. Just open the doors and clean out the box! She had previously put the catbox in the tub, but I didn't want it exposed in her beautiful newly remodeled master bath! Much neater and less smelly too.

rcates We have had two automatic litterboxes throughout the years and I wouldn't recommend them for multi cat households. If the cats happen to go one after the other, say, just after breakfast, the motor may not be strong enough to scoop all the waste at once. That was the case with our two cats and the comb would just get stuck and reset over and over and it wore out the motor.

terri23 When we built our new house I planned for putting the litter box in the laundry room cupboard. I put five coats of marine varnish on the inside of the cupboard, just to be on the safe side. Unfortunately, the sides of the litterbox were not high enough and before I knew it cat urine had leaked under the box and gotten on the sides of the cupboards as well. Even with the extra varnish my brand new cupboards were ruined. Be very careful if you are considering this option!

dbldutch we had an automatic litter box and loved it most of the time. Sometimes the rake would get stuck or if the feces was soft it might stick to the rack - yuck!! The litter that you use is crucial. I will say that for multiple cats we've found we often need multiple litter boxes regardless of the type of box and litter we use. I will look into the very high end litter box that cleans itself - where can I find it?

Witt Construction The first photo below is a whole dedicated 'kitty room' with ceiling vents for air quality control and a pocket door to close it all away. The second photo (in the bottom right hand corner) is a secret passage way for the homeowners precious felines!

Sharon Chapman Becky you have a maine coon cat. Well my sweet kitty is about the same size and our scoop free couldn't handle her poop! I ended up scooping. We put a doggie door from the mud room into the garage, bought a huge tray and she is quite happy. No more mess. At night I leave a light on. LOL
PS we went through 2 no scoop boxes before we came up with this. If you have a small kitty they work fine, big cat a definite no.

Magdalena Bogart Interiors Great ideas. Thank you for sharing them.

swazze you have to dispose of litter daily or it smells- robot or not, waiting 5 days is disgusting

Jason Shepard Carl, I love that you brought up toilet training your cats. We have 8 of them, most of which were rescues. Two of them are toilet trained and one of them actually flushes the toilet when he's done using it. I've tried repetitively to get this on camera/video, but it hasn't worked so far (both cats stop and run away when the camera comes out and there's no place to hide in the bathroom). I find that program interesting, but it was actually easier just to place the cats in the bathroom with me (the boy) and my wife (the girl) while we were using the toilet and those two watched and learned on their own. Now, just to get the others to do it...

I have used the automatic ones, especially the $85 model from Wal-Mart. It worked incredibly well as long as I only had one cat. As soon as I started with more than one, it was no longer sufficient and even two didn't cut it. While I only had one, though, I absolutely LOVED it.

ba88 I have an automatic cleaning litter box for my Maine Coon and it works FANTASTIC! Just remember to get the 'multi cat' or heavy duty for large cats...the small units don't scoop as well.

georgiegirl65 Scoop free is good however the only thing is the environmental waste left behind and the expense of the trays that i don't like.I only use when we are going away and I don't expect my friends watching our kitties to clean up after them. If they could come up with biodegradable products then I would use it all the time.

carriekaye Is there a type of kitty litter that flushes? That would be so much easier.

Sonja Hilliard, DVM Becky, I have four cats that share two large plastic wrapping paper storage boxes, as litter boxes. This is what I recommend for my larger patients or for those that frequently "miss" their target. Think outside the litter box for your kitty. I had a self cleaning box when it was just two cats sharing it, and it still needed to be emptied about every other day, and was very noisy. And the box/attachments were difficult/awkward to clean, it frequently got "stuck",
and that's always fun to find after a few days.

meschneider georgiegirl65 - the cleaning products used with The Pet Loo (a pet potty made of synthetic turf and grass to simulate the outdoors) are 100% biodegradable: http://thepetloo.com/cleaning/enzyme-technology/

mcluoma There are two great litter boxes missing... Litter-Robot and Kitty a Gogo.

Heather Baskerville, CKD I helped a client remodel a mudroom, and she had the idea of putting a small 'doggie door' into an open base cabinet that accessed the interior of her garage... where she keeps the litter box.

Brendan Kiely I can personally recommend the Omega Paw Self-Cleaning Litter Box.

You can find a lot of extremely positive buyer reviews on the web

Read more: http://ibookmarkedit.com/omega-paw-self-cleaning-litter-box-pewter/ >Omega Paw Self-Cleaning Litter Box, Pewter

linnettewolfberg I have several and absolutely love them. The automatic litter delivery is an added bonus. ;)