Hidden litter box furniture for open-plan flats

Hiding a litter box in furniture is one of the most common requests I get from people in open-plan flats — and it can absolutely work, but there are a few things that trip cats up when it gets wrong. Most litter boxes sold in shops are already too small — cats need a space at least 1.5 times their body length to turn around and dig comfortably. Add an enclosed furniture unit on top of that, and you can end up with something that feels more like a cupboard than a toilet. Covered boxes also trap odours inside, which bothers cats far more than it bothers us. Before I point you in the right direction: how many cats do you have, how big are they, and is your cat currently using a litter box without any problems?

Good news — a 4kg cat is a manageable size, and the fact she's already using a tray reliably means she's not anxious about the litter box itself. The risk with furniture units is ventilation and entry point size. Some are so enclosed that odour builds up fast and the cat starts avoiding it. What I'd want to know next is: do you have a particular spot in mind for it — corner, against a wall, next to a sofa — and are you set on it looking like a specific piece of furniture, like a side table or a cabinet?

Then I'd point you straight to the Merry Products Side Table Bench with litter box enclosure — it's available on Amazon UK and it's the one I'd actually recommend for your situation. It looks like a wooden side table, has a side-entry hole that's large enough for a medium cat, and crucially it has slatted ventilation built in so odour doesn't pool inside. The interior is roomy enough for a standard large tray. The entry hole is on the side rather than the top, which most cats find less threatening than climbing down into a box. One thing to do: when you first set it up, leave the side panel off for a week so she can explore it as an open space before you close it in. That transition step makes a real difference.

Stick with whatever she's using now, at least for the first few weeks. Changing litter type at the same time as changing the box is the fastest way to get a cat to protest by going elsewhere. Once she's using the new unit consistently — usually two to three weeks — you can experiment if you want to. If odour control inside the unit becomes an issue, a clumping litter helps a lot since it seals liquid in and you can scoop daily without a full change. But don't switch until she's settled.

The general rule is one box per cat plus one extra, so technically two for one cat. In practice, a lot of single cats in smaller flats manage fine with one box if it's large enough and cleaned daily. Given that yours is already happy with one tray and showing no issues, I wouldn't worry about it right now. If you ever notice her going outside the box or seeming unsettled, adding a second somewhere else is the first thing to try. But for now, one well-sized, well-ventilated unit kept clean is a perfectly reasonable starting point.