🐈 My brother and I have built over 100 catios in NY. Here’s why ours are different!

First off, apparently using emojis means a post is AI-generated now 😂 I use them because they catch people’s attention. Anyway…

I’m Sal, and my brother John and I own 2 Brothers Catios out of Long Island, NY. John’s been rescuing animals for over 10 years, and we’ve spent 7 years building custom catios from scratch. Over 100 projects, nothing but 5-star reviews, and features in Newsday and the Bergen Herald!

Here’s what makes us different:

🏡 Freestanding: Our structures don’t rely on your house for support, but cats can still access them through windows and enclosed tunnels.

🔨 Made AND installed by us: We manufacture, deliver, and install our own products. No outsourcing or DIY kits.

🛠️ Concealed screws & staples: This is a HUGE difference. Most catio builders attach their wire mesh directly to the framing and leave the staples and screws exposed. John adds another layer of finished framing to conceal ALL of it, including the wire edges. That means no visible staple marks, exposed screw holes, or unfinished exterior. It takes more time, labor, and materials, but that’s exactly why our structures look different.

No drilling into the siding, 100% clean and no need to be attached to the house.

💪 Built for 10+ years: Heavy-duty welded wire, reinforced framing, and weather-resistant materials. These aren’t lightweight kits.

🚚 Nationwide delivery: On-site builds in NY, NJ, and CT. Towers and window boxes delivered anywhere in the country. Transportation and installation fees are discussed upfront.

🏰 Transparent pricing: Towers start at $10K, Klubhouses at $12.5K, and Kingdoms at $16K. We also build custom indoor and outdoor enclosures for other animals.

💎 And to anyone who looked at our prices and said they “stopped themselves” from contacting us, thank you for recognizing we’re not the right fit for everyone! We’re currently attracting high-end clients, including celebrities, who aren’t shopping for the cheapest catio. They’re looking for something completely different: a luxury structure where their cats’ safety, quality materials, and every finishing detail matter more than the price tag.

That’s our market, and we’re proud of it. We’re not trying to sell a $400 catio for $10,000. We’re building a completely different product.

This post is about awareness. You’d be surprised how many people don’t even know professional catio companies like ours exist!

And to the DIY community, nothing but respect. There’s room for both.

Did you know companies existed that build and install luxury catios like these?

— Sal, 2 Brothers Catios 🐈

on my third sketch and every version gets bigger while the budget stays the same lol. anyone regret not sizing up or is bigger always the right call

Turf type tall fescue(tttf) is amazing grass for a catio that does not get alot of sun! We wanted to give the cats real grass to chew and lay on so we tried wheatgrass first but it dies quickly and is pricey compared to tttf.

I got the plans for the red stained catio on Etsy for $8 and built it from scratch. It spans across 2 windows. Truth be told, it costed over $1600 dollars to finish including the astroturf. And that's with the cheapest wood I could find lol. It was either Fir or Birch wood from home depot.

Second one (human friendly catio) was simple enough. I bought garden lattice and screwed it in to the existing patio, made swinging doors, and also framing for the doors.

These girls love the rain

Hallo zusammen, wir haben dieses selbstgemachte Freigehege für unsere Katzen gebaut ☺️ mit ein paar Ebenen und Kratzmöglichkeiten haben wir es bereits versehen. Habt ihr vielleicht noch weitere Anregungen und Tipps was wir da rein machen können gerne auch welches Material dafür verwendet wird wir sind für jede Ideen dankbar😊😊

mine ignores it all week and then sits out there in the rain like hes paying rent on it lol

Hello and good day all,

I have quite an ambitious project, and Im hoping the fine folks here can help me out. Even simply images, layouts, ideas, reference materials, build parts, dimensions, brackets, etc - I will absorb it all and it will help!

I apologize in advance for the length, but I will try to be detailed to prevent lack of information issues. (HOUSTON TX AREA)

I have this large-ish patio area that is 10 ft by 12 ft solid concrete slab (original to the house). It is 10 feet deep from the back door (which used to have an old doggy door from the prior owners that we originally were going to repurpose, BUT we have since replaced the backdoor and cannot - so we will resort to opening a window as a pathway). Our Pavers were not as deep, but I recently re-paved them, levelling them, and extending them to just shy of 10 feet (theyre actually 9 ft 9 inches, but I plan to get a seperate smaller paver to officially make them 10 feet exact).

In my images you can see that I had bought those self-standing catios - three of them, and at first we had them longwise, but turned them sideways to fit better after I extended the pavers. We had them against the house, but for the window access, I had to build a wooden frame to slide into the brick windowframe to cover any gaps because I am extremely paranoid about them finding a hole.

We recently had new windows installed. That wood frame no longer fits. If I try to rebuild it and set it in, it runs the risk of damaging the windows already and would 100% void my warranty for it (by owner caused deliberate damage).

*So I am in need of getting some MOVEMENT on my grand ambitious catio idea. *

I want to entirely enclose the patio as a walk-in catio. Then extend it down the 45-50 foot line down the pavers to just shy of the AC (Leaving room for maintenance to work around it, of course). Potentially we may stop it just shy of those back windows. I also cannot drill into the soffets or roof edge without voiding the warranty on the (also new) roof, soffets, and fascia.

We are not opposed to breaking up the 10 by 12 patio into a 10 by 10 section, or a 10 by 8, since we plan to extend it the whole way down. The only height rule we have is "tall enough for us to not bonk our heads" (which happens with the other smaller ones we bought). My gitters/soffet line runs approl 9.5-10 ft high, and Im the tallest one at 5'11'' so theres a decent play there.

My original thinking was to build it in "sections". Do the patio first. Then the section next to it. The section next to that. Etc. So each is structurally sound, just placed side by side (and no mesh between them). We plan to add a door right by the patio, and another at the far end.

Our problem is we cannot decide on how to start. It rains a lot here. I see folks use a 4 by 4 as a base frame, and build the walls on top of that. Ours would rot sitting directly on the concrete where the wood would absorb all that water upwards. I saw folks use these concrete risers, but again, that wouldnt work so well as I dont want to "put a deck", and Id have to deal with framing around the slanted concrete to prevent cat escapists. Then I thought maybe I could frame he thing in concrete cindeblocks, but 1: potentially expensive, 2: thats a lot of cinderblocks to get enough to frame the whole thing so we dont have to re-frame around the blocks, and 3: aesthetics (thats my moms argument).

We will be doing all the manual labor. Im pretty handy and weve done plenty of projects on our own.. just never building an outside structure that sits. My greatest concern after structurally sound is weathering (rains a lot, and windy, as were near Houston TX area).

So.. help a gal out?

Hello! I'm looking for a window sill attachment for my cat to climb into a box and be able to look out the window, but I keep a black shade on my office window to not let any sunlight in. Are there any products that are a black box with a hole for a cat to crawl in, limiting sunlight into the room, but still letting the cat enjoy the outdoors?

anyone else run their catio off a door. do you just leave it open for them or is there a better way to close it up when its cold

I had built one before but only out of some metal cubes and it rusted and eventually fell apart. This is my first full size one and so far it's inhabitants seem to like it. Still a ways to go but once I put the roof on they can get some outside action.

I redid my deck with the intention of making it a catio. It will eventually have a roof and we will fully screen it in. It’s a small deck, only 10x8.

We’ve been talking about how it may be a nice place to sit during rainfall or when it’s exceptionally buggy outside. (This porch is on the side of the house, the front of the house faces a lake so that’s the main outdoor seating area)

So the idea is maybe a small outdoor table, like bistro size. Somewhere we could eat lunch or set up a laptop for a little bit and then the rest with “cat stuff”. But I don’t want it to be ridiculously crowded either. I’m wondering if anyone has a similar setup for inspiration.

Hi Friends!

Im scheming a build thatll turn my Pergola into a Catio. Atm my plan is to have wood framed mesh/wire panels and doors and such, classic Catio design.

The ground of this pergola is plain concrete. Is there anything in particular I should do if I wanted to put some flooring ontop of the concrete? Its a rental so I dont want to damage it accidentally with weather damage and the like 😅

Im looking for a catio where I can push one side up against the house and open the window to let the cat in/out however our kitchen window only has the highest top part that can be opened so the cage would need to be about 2.5m tall to reach up to this. Ive seen ones on Wayfair and amazon but they all look identical and have mixed reviews (plus I dont think theyre tall enough). Cat is a climber so high is good.

Can anyone recommend please?

I recently moved into a 100+ year old house with an unroofed balcony. My girls used to love going out on our apartment balcony and I miss letting them outside, but I’m struggling. As you can see in the photos, the railing is extremely climbable and the bars easy to slip through. The second issue is the floor. It’s not flat, it slopes away from the house (I think it may have just been the patio roof before) I’ve considered buying one of those premade catios or making one out of a green house frame and letting the cats access it from the open window, but nothing sitting flat on the floor will also sit flat against the wall. I’m also really not wanting to screw anything into the walls, what with their age. It’s a rental, after all. The only solution I can think of is to build some kind of platform for the catio to sit on, but I’m not all that smart so I figured I’d ask brighter minds than mine if they had any ideas.

starting the frame this weekend and now im wondering if i should pave the base or just let them walk on the grass under the mesh. what did you guys do

Hey everyone,

Long time lurker. I've built both the window unit and standalone one here. I'm trying different materials to build a tunnel of sorts and connect them. So far I have not been successful. Does anyone have ideas on how to do this? I need the tunnel to be 3.5 ft sloped down and 2 ft straight. Unless there's an option to do both? Plz help. Thanks!

every morning the floor out there is covered in springs and little mice. is this a normal catio thing or is she just weird

We had a cheap Temu catio that our two cats really enjoyed. It was destroyed last July in a windstorm so we took the opportunity to upgrade significantly. My older cat didn't love the new one but did OK while my younger would flat refuse to be brought in! But beginning a few weeks ago the older despises being in it and the younger has started following her example. It should be noted that weather is changing, and what were morning temps in the high 80s and low 90s are now 30 degrees cooler, but still pleasant. I've attached some pics of the new catio and would love to hear suggestions on how I might make the cats more comfortable out there. Alternatively, if weather change really is that big a deal I can move it off my patio for now and get space back until it warms back up next year.

Edit: many have suggested connecting it so the cats can come and go as they please. As much as I would love to do this there is just no way without breaching an exterior wall. We haven't entirely ruled this out (we're cat owners after all 🙃) but it's a Spring project at this point. Also, I can't find any pics of the previous catio but it was positioned in the same place as this one and was if anything more exposed and with less-comfortable resting areas. It did not have come and go access. The biggest difference between then and now are temperatures.

I live in an appartment and would like for my cat to have a little window box. The problem is that my windows slide horizontally, so all the options that I see online wouldn't work. I unfortunately don't have any way to build a custom one either. Does anyone know if vertical cat boxes are a thing or anyone that can make one?