Hi there,
I am very new to DIY, never even used a drill before, hence please let me know if what I said makes no sense, and I will try my best to rephrase.
I recently bought cat shelves (image below), and the more I research, the more things I find I might need.
I concluded that the wall I want to mount on has metal studs.
Now I just realised that I can't mount each bracket onto one stud each because the distance between each bracket, and metal studs, do not match.
This will also be heavy-loaded as cats jumping on to them would be approx. 3 times their weight. Hence I'd say each shelf needs to be able to withstand at the very least 20kg, max 25-30, maybe a bit more for the bigger shelves (in case all 3 cats decides to be on one shelf).
So far I have a hammer drill, stud finder, laser level, and the screws that comes with the mounting kit but that would only be for wood studs or solid walls. I think I need a few more items just because I have metal studs.
Based on my research so far, I would need a flip toggle (or toggle bolts…?) for the metal stud part, and a wood backing board for the drywall, no studs, part. Then use the screws from the mounting kit to mount it against the backing board.
Are there other ways other than using a wood backing board? Would mounting the cat shelf, one bracket onto a metal stud, and the rest with drywall anchor on drywall work?
I hope this makes sense. All I could find about others mounting these cat shelves are "We just drilled the screws into the wall to mount the shelf, ta-da!" and maybe that's because they have wood studs or solid walls.
