Catio

As if we don't have enough unfinished projects going on, we just spent a few days on a totally fun project - building a catio for our two pampered kitties.  If you don't know what a catio is, it's a screened in patio for cats.  Some people just screen in their porch or other outdoor space.  We have a little unused corner in our backyard, tucked in behind the house, and for some reason it is paved (?), and it has just been a place to collect junk, like old sprinklers and extra propane tanks.  It's right off our bedroom.

The cats love sitting in the windows in our bedroom, because they can look out over the fence and see what's going on out there.  They are high windows over our bed.  So while we were out in Las Vegas, we were sitting by the pool talking about ways to adapt this space for the cats, and so our ideas were formed, but we thought we'd build a frame, use chicken wire or other hardware cloth and fence it in.  But I was looking on Pinterest, and saw this pin:

This is a portable cat yard made out of wire storage cubes.  They look like this:

 

I got these at K-mart for 18.97 a box.  Each box has 23 wire panels and plenty of plastic connectors. We bought 5 boxes. Then we were to Harbor Freight and bought 600 zip ties, they were 1.50 for 100.  We also bought 6 2x2s and some shelf brackets.  

The nice thing about this is that you can set up whatever configuration you like, each panel is 14" square, and we just laid out a plan on paper, and it went together in modules.  The first part we made was the platform and the space over that, above the block wall.  From the front of the house, it looks like this:

 

there is a 3/4" plywood platform resting on the two sides of the block wall, and we anchored a 2 x 2 cleat on the house that the other side rests on.  It has a large square cutout so they can go below.  Right now, the entry to the cage is through the window over our bed:

 We plan to add a cat door along the baseboard of our bedroom later, but this works for now.  Below the platform is the paved part of their catio:

 

It's a little  hard to see in this picture, but we built a storage box at the back of the space, we can store our extra propane tanks and potting materials in there, and it serves as a platform for the cats to sleep on.  At the end here, we have a door that we can enter so we can clean, sweep, get our propane tanks, etc.  There's also one shelf on the wall on the right, we still have two more to add on the block wall to the left, and I am going to sew a cat hammock along that back wall over the storage box.  They like to roll around on the concrete.

From there, we built a little tunnel to the second part of the catio:

Persephone likes to chew on grass, so I am going to add some more in this section.  This is the short tunnel to the second part of the cage.

This is the part that I think they'll really like - it's a view to the entire backyard, all the birds, plants and watching us while we work!  They like this a lot.  I had to move a big patch of cannas from this section, so there's no grass growing right now, but it will soon enough.  This part has stakes holding it to the ground so Miss Persephone won't pry it up.  She's sneaky like that.

 It's connected to the block walls by way of a 2 x 2 framework that's anchored to the block wall, and then attached with cable connectors like this:

The panels themselves are connected with the plastic connectors, and then zip ties added for security.  Each connection looks like this:

The back sides of the connectors are facing out, so that the smooth side is inwards.  Also, all the zip ties have the nubs facing out, so there's no scratchy parts on the cat's side.  To be honest, we almost could not use the plastic connectors, just using the zip ties really pulled the panels tight.  In some parts (beside the door, the tunnel) we didn't use the plastic connectors, just connected the panels with zip ties and they are just fine.

We also painted the 2 x 2s with either leftover house paint (tan) or leftover patio furniture paint (black), depending on what it was connected to.

We spent about $125 dollars on this, which wasn't much, and some things we had already (plywood, scrap lumber, screws, paint).  So far, the cats are loving it.  Just a few minutes ago, Persephone ran into the living room to check to see that we were still here, then turn around and ran back outside!  It was so funny!  Mercury runs up to the window and meows at us, then goes back out.  I think he's a little excited about it, too. 

We have about 10 panels left - we would like to continue making a tunnel going back to the back corner of the yard, so maybe in the future, we'll extend their special space!