Building a Catio for my Cats (From Start to Finish!)

hi guys this video is all about my journey towards my dream catio ever since hearing about catios many years ago i knew that i needed to have one for my cats my cats love going outside poco is harness trained she loves to walk on a leash eloise loves to sit in the windowsill and watch the birds and so i know that my cats are going to just adore having a safe outdoor space we bought a house two months ago so now i can actually dream up this patio that is going to go right outside of my office so i brought in alan the catio guy who is a catio expert and he is helping me create my dream catio for my cats my name is alan and my company is custom catios we build amazing one-of-a-kind unique catios a catio is an outdoor protected cat enclosure where a cat can go experience the fresh air the sunshine the bugs and the birds and the squirrels get all that stimulation outside that they need but do it in a protected environment where they're safe from predators and cars and other dangers the most basic level of a catio you're going to have shelves bed perches at the top and maybe a couple ramps you know that's the the most basic but after that we have uh climbing poles cat ladders cat steps floating beds we have these beds that look like almost like bird cages that come down from the ceiling hiding boxes with cat cutouts uh we have what we call peekaboo bubble beds it's like almost like a sink but then you can see them from the bottom so we strategically place them in places where you guys will hang out and kind of use views of them you know so there's a bunch of different materials to choose from this is for the roof this is for the roof these are the two most common roofs it's actually called polygal it works great outside it's made for the outside this is gonna be a clear transparent one and this one will provide a little bit more shade it's called bronze it's plastic it's plastic it works great it's really made for the outdoors you know a lot of people use it for different types of gardening things like that or sheds and things but uh it works fantastic on catios that's the bronze roof oh that looks really nice yeah on ramps and then higher shelves we like really don't want them falling off no matter what so we will carpet them and we use outdoor industrial strength carpeting uh these are our four uh colors that we offer um blue green beige i definitely know which one i want this one definitely gray so then we have the mesh and we actually have five different types of mesh but these three are really the most common this is the most durable one it's two inch by two inch it has about 87 visibility and we get especially hot dipped in zinc which galvanizes it which makes it really uh weatherproof the other two by two we have is this pvc coated one this comes in rolls directly directly from the manufacturer so it's also galvanized and then pvc coated and then we have a one inch which is very similar to the black one and then it's aesthetics you know do you prefer black or silver do you prefer the two inch or the one inch some people want to go smaller this is a quarter inch some people just prefer aesthetically like a one inch silver again this one is not uh gonna be completely predator proof so i i stay away from it for the most part we have in our area bobcats coyotes we have raccoons what are some tips that you have for predator proofing so if you build uh a catio on concrete you have to worry about it less but if you're doing it on dirt or uh grass you definitely have to bury mesh around the perimeter we do it in an l shape so that we bury the mesh would be like this and like this we're gonna do the one inch pvc coated wire mesh for the roof we're gonna do the bronze 10 millimeter polygon and then for the carpet we're gonna go gray and then for the wood a painted white red wood and that's all the materials so what are all the ways that a cat can get from inside to outside in a catio so there's basically four general ways um one is on a sliding glass door you get a sliding glass door insert number two is and this is the most common is you put a cat door uh through the wall i'd say about sixty percent of my customers do that the third way is um a window you put in an insert similar to what you do for the sliding glass door and the fourth way is if you have a french door uh oftentimes you can take out just a single pane at the bottom of the french door and replace that with a custom-made cat door so for our setup would you think we should do the door thing or just put in the i mean my i always lean towards putting uh the cat door through the wall like a lot of people are hesitant they don't like oh they're gonna hurt their house oh no we've already we've we crossed that bridge a long time ago this is going to be a cadified house let's do a door then [Music] then slide it out and the cats will go in and out just like that ah okay oh there's gonna be a fun one because you know it's kind of designed to be very disneyland-esque i'm excited and here's what it's gonna look like exactly like that or something to that it's gonna look very similar to that for sure the first part of building our catio is creating the frame so they're putting vertical four by fours to create the frame and then putting horizontal two by fours so these are gonna be our posts that are gonna go in the front and once these are up then we attach our two by fours to it and we'll basically create the frame part when you make a catio do you attach it to a house yes we do we do it for stability if we go into wood we use wood screws if you go into stucco we have special stuff anchors and into the ground and we use concrete screws for that and these four by fours also serve as our interior structure that we can attach everything to so all of our ramps and perches and shells and everything we do inside this is where we get the stability from so the shelves are made out of plywood and then the corners are cut out so that it can actually fit onto the 4x4 so that's one these are those are huge ones these are a little bit bigger i mean that's awesome you could fit like i'm gonna need more caps on that and then this one is deep for a special reason right this is where the clear bowl is gonna go so once you get all painted we can cut a hole in it and we'll place a ball in there this is the cat uh box with uh cat cutouts and um it opens wow it opens cats love to be outside but hidden that's a really comfy spot so these are the steps um that are gonna go in there we've already primed them this piece is for the ranch for the ramp right i think eloise is gonna like live inside of that she's very shy but she like wants to be outside but she's also like nervous right and she's a white cat so that's very good you won't even be able to see her exactly is it recommended for catios to have an exterior door for humans yeah i mean you need to be able to get into the catio for one thing to clean it and more importantly uh in case of an emergency you really want to be able to grab the cat in a hurry so we put the spring hinges so they self-close so when you're walking out or in case somebody leaves a door open doesn't close it all the way i'll close automatically that way a cat can't get out it's good to have people who understand cats building your catio because i wouldn't have even thought about like making sure it's a self-closing door but that makes a lot of sense the frame that we're doing is really interesting because it goes along the whole front of my office but then it also has this little like peekaboo part around the corner that is like a high up area that the cats are going to be able to look around the corner and rest up high [Laughter] it works so the whole thing is attached to the structure yeah either to the stucco or to the face and then how do they get up there so they're going to create a pathway there's going to be a shelf up here uh-huh and then they're going to be able to go from here there's going to be a shelf here it's awesome to watch it's really cool to watch all right so this is it there's a lot of space in here yeah it's huge it's a lot of space once we get the framing done then we're going to start looking at the interior stuff you know and so the shelves everything is done custom so we're going to measure the space of the shelf we're going to determine how wide the shelf is going to be another thing that takes a lot of time is the timing hole this is the jig that henry came up with to hold the pole so we could spin it and he could wrap and to make sure it's tight while we're spinning it the black it's an abs pipe it's typically used in plumbing but we use it for the rope holes it's nice and sturdy and straight this one is a synthetic rope we use this because it's better for outdoors what's the most secure way to put rope onto a pole yeah well we use the glue and then every two to three feet we staple so we'll do the frame we'll do the shelves we'll do the roof and then at the very end we'll come and do um the mesh the wire mesh that's the last thing we do when you're attaching the wire to the wood what do you use we use like heavy duty staples did you ever think that you would be building catios professionally i never thought i'd be building uh carrios for a living uh i never even knew what kind of carrier was until i started with the company do you like cats uh you have to oh wait you have to i thought you said you have to like i have to like no no no i'm required you have two cats do you have cats no oh my gosh you need cats i know i'll take one of the little small ones those are really cute they watched you out the window no they missed it we all always get that you always get there they're right hurry up finish ready to go outside and play halloween has been watching the whole time yeah we've seen we've seen her looking out the they window to love just watching us work i think she knows something cool is happening that's all for you cheesy so the catio is officially complete and it is so beautiful it is so cool to see it all come together you know just a few weeks ago we were picking out what kind of mesh and what kind of carpet and what color we wanted and we came up with this beautiful design and here it is this is one of my favorite parts of the whole thing because i never would have thought to do something up here um but that's really high up i think that the cats are gonna just freak out the other thing i love about this catio is that there's a lot of safety features so i love my cats so much and i'm so paranoid about animals escaping or not being able to get them out in an emergency so there's things like you know there's a little door here so that if they were up there and we needed to get them we can so alan do you want to give us the grand tour inside i would love to let's take a look okay the cats come in through the cat door in the bottom and immediately they have some cat steps where they can go up or they can come over here and take the ramp up or they can take the express route up via the 10 foot tall synthetic rope climbing pole uh we also have the hiding box with track cutouts down below and here is the peekaboo bubble bed and all around the top is basically a cat super highway and the whole thing connects to each other so they can go all the way around i can't wait for the cats to take a look at it i think they're gonna be so so excited okay are you ready [Music] here she goes here she goes here she goes eloise come on come look what is this please [Music] [Music] cheesy oh my god i can't believe oh my god look at you go i think you're in and out you have like made one of my dreams come true because i have been a cat lady for so long but i've never been a cat lady with a catio and now i have my dream catio what would you say to other people who really want a catio but don't know where to start what should they do there's so many great catio options now uh they're first of all there's catio builders all over the place so i first checked locally you see if there's a catio builder in your area but then there's also diy options you can get and you can google that um and then there's a bunch of prefab options as well where they kind of send you really fancy cages that can be constructed so there's definitely an option for everybody and if you live in the los angeles area you know who to call the catio guy [Music] you

Channel: Kitten Lady

Views: 1,049,901

Keywords: kitten, kitten lady, cat, orphan, orphaned, baby, neonatal, infant, newborn, found, find, kittens, rescue, adopt, rescued, foster, fostering, help, how to, what do i do, how do i, cats, animal, hannah shaw, animal planet, feed, pee, poop, babies, shelter, cute, catio, custom, guy, design, construct, build, diy, do it yourself, how to make, building, materials, wood, guide, instructions, patio, for cats, outdoor, porch, screen, screened, handy, enrichment, best, tutorial, ramp, platform, bed, walkway, how to build, scratch, pole

Id: _cQddCzM220

Length: 14min 32sec (872 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 27 2021