My Snowmageddon House Project

[JOD]

I was stuck in the house for a couple of days during Snowmageddon, and decided to do something I'd been planning on for a while. The problem: cats' litter box is in the laundry room. Cats must have access to the laundry room. Dog must be kept out of the laundry room....

So far, my answer was a baby gate with a hole cut in it--a temporary ghetto solution. I didn't want to cut a hole in the fancy fir 2-panel door, so what to do? Cat doors are ugly, and it just doesn't go with the "old world charm" thing in a >100 year old house.

The solution:

My cats are now strutting in style, and the dog is sufficiently deterred. I still have to finish some sanding and painting, but you get the idea. I like this way better than chopping up the door, and if the next owner of the house doesn't appreciate it, it's easy to go back to a solid wall. But why, when it looks this good! BTW, the molding/header piece match the rest of the door molding in the lower level, though you can't quite see it on the big door.

One other cool thing: this was all done with scrap wood I had laying around, so I didn't have to buy anything.

Anyone else have any nifty, stupid home-improvement projects going on? If so, post them up--I'm always looking for new ideas.

 

[Donald]

Nice work.

I bought a pet gate (similar to baby gate) to keep the dog in the kitchen area when I am not home. The pet gate has a cat door near the bottom that I can open or close.

What we do for our pets.

 

[Pablo]

I love it! I did something similar on two other houses, except the exterior walls to the garage, back when no dogs were allowed in the house.

Almost forgot - Glad you survived Snowzilla. That junk is still piled high up in the hills of Duvall. The Zsnowbies were getting close when the power was out. Came back on 10:30PM last night!

 

[JOD]

Originally Posted By: Pablo
The Zsnowbies were getting close when the power was out. Came back on 10:30PM last night!


Oh man, sorry to hear your power was out! I have to hand it to Seattle City Light, my power never goes out. I have friends on the east side who's power just came on, and they seem to lose power often. PSE seems to struggle a lot more, but maybe that's just my perception.

I have ice spikes on the mountain bike, and I can walk to a lot of stuff, so it wasn't the end of the world. It was a good excuse to finish the cat door!

The dog took one look at the cat door and just walked away. I'm sure he could squeeze through there if he were more motivated, but he's never really been the hardest working dog in show business. He decided napping would be a better option...

 

[Pablo]

Sounds like my dogs.

Seattle City Light is a lot more urban and actually smaller. I can hardly fault PSE for frozen snapping trees falling on power lines.

 

[bruckus]

I did a similar project. We put our cat boxes under the stairway. We have a full sized door which we can access the area from. Before I cut and finished the cat access hole the under stair area was just a junk collection area. Now it is a great little area so our cats can have privacy and no smell or mess for us.