Building The CAT ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND // Catio

about seven months ago we built this catio for Mickey the cat who has FIV which means that he's not allowed to interact with other cats but we wanted to be able to give him some space to roam outside and then a few months later we got Hazel the cat and she's an indoor cat too and both her and Mickey seem to really enjoy being out here but as you can see there's nothing really in here at the moment and that's because the winter came and I didn't get a chance to do anything with it so that's what we're going to be working on in this video I've got all these old roof patterns that I put to one side when they were pulled off our old roof and using these I'm going to make some simple brackets which I can use to hold shells and other things that I'll be building throughout this video each bracket will be made up of two pieces with 90 degree ends and one diagonal piece with 45 degree ends and using some polyurethane glue I can get each one assembled with some decking screws the first thing I wanted to do was to install a big shelf in this corner because this is the area that gets the most sun and our cats love laying in the Sun each bracket gets secured to the studs with three screws and I'm not using a level here The Cats won't mind if things are a bit wonky and also the rain will run off them better too to make the shelves I'm using some new roof baton offcuts that I pulled out from our skip when we had our Roofing work done I did a bit of research just to make sure that the treatment used on these is non-toxic and safe for animals and everything I read seemed to suggest that it would be fine but if you're doing your own project like this please do your own research I'm going to space the slats apart so that they don't hold water when it rains because the brackets are going in different directions I'm going to need to cut some spacer blocks to sit on top of two of the brackets so that the Shelf sits nicely on top as I got some stain on these shelves the weather took a turn for the worse foreign ER so with the Shelf now sitting on these brackets I'm a bit concerned that this corner here might present an opportunity for hazel to be able to jump from this corner up onto the roof Hazel's a bit more Nimble than Mickey Mickey would never attempt to jump like that but anyway what I'm thinking now is maybe I can cut this off at 45. the Shelf will still be plenty big enough so I think that's what I'm gonna do I'll just need to cut some more batter to support the underside of the Shelf where the cut was made [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] from a recent wood salvaging Mission and these long bits have housing grooves cut into them but again the cats aren't going to mind that and one of these pieces will be perfect for making a ladder to get up to the sun Shelf to make some steps I ripped some more batten down the center at 45 degrees and cut them to length at the miter saw I was hoping that I could install the steps over these old screw holes to hide them all but I also wanted the steps to be equally spaced apart so I did a bit of Measuring Up and it looked like my luck was in spacing them about 170 millimeters apart on Center would hide all of the screw holes these 18 gauge brad nails that I'm using just temporarily hold them in place and then I can add screws to reinforce them I can then offer it up decide where I want it to be and cut away the excess and some of those leftover steps made nice support pieces at both the top of the ladder and the bottom too as I can use this to secure plastic feet to to keep the wood up off the ground so that it doesn't suck up moisture foreign now I can add some more brackets and shells so that the cats can climb around now let's see if Mickey can use the ladder I think that might have tied him out Hazel wasn't yet brave enough to try it but she'll get there later I'm going to use some more salvaged Pine to make a rope ladder I'm going to mark up and drill some holes in each corner and then run this rope through each slat as you'll see I have another shelf fitted now and I can run the Rope bridge between those two shelves I just want to make sure that it's nice and tight and Mickey mastered this in no time with a bit of persuasion foreign I thought it'd be cool to make a tunnel so more salvaged Pine needed I tilt my blade to 60 degrees and ripped each edge trying to retain as much width on these boards as possible [Music] and I have six of these which should form a nice long hexagon [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] I wasn't sure if this would be quite big enough particularly for Mickey who's quite a big lad but there was only one way to find out [Music] I think Hazel might like this as she likes hiding places but trying to get her to discover it with Mickey bouncing around looking for treats was impossible [Music] next up I'm going to make a penthouse I've got some of this exterior grade MDF left over not quite enough to make what I wanted unfortunately but enough to get started and I can figure out the rest later I'm cutting an angle here to support the roof so that rain will flow off the top and I can match that angle on the top edges of the side panels thank you this tub of paint looks a good size to make an entrance hole off to the shed now to see if I've got anything I can use to make the rest and I have some bits of perspex here and I can use these to make the windows I added a bevel to the openings a very messy job when you can't find the right dust extraction attachment for the plunge base of the router good job I was wearing a respirator and it'll need some ventilation too so I'm going to fit one of the soffit vents the perspex is going to need a hole in each corner so that I can secure it with screws and using one of the offcuts I thought I'd make a little drip edge for over the door to keep the rain out for the base I routed a rebate and I ended up deciding to use some more perspex I thought it'd be funny to be able to watch the Caps from underneath I'm going to stick it on with some silicon and then add some screws and then everything gets primed and painted so you'll see here I've added a bracket at the height I want the penthouse to sit and I added some more brackets ready for another shelf so that the cats can get up to it [Applause] foreign house at the top with two long eight millimeter coach bolts which will receive a washer and a nut on the inside but before I tighten them down I'm going to add some blocks at the back just to create some space for a roof overhang and for the roof you might have guessed I have more perspex I'm going to secure it in place with some silicon [Music] it was quite tricky to apply this through the galvanized mesh but I managed to get it done let's see if Mickey will go inside [Music] I added another shelf over here in the corner just so that the cats have another way to get up and down right so I'm not a fan of artificial grass at all but I wanted some kind of soft Floor Covering here that the cats can play around on and it'll help brighten up everything too and I got this roll for 40 pounds which seemed like a bargain I wanted to tuck it under the walls so that it's held in place and I thought that this would be the project complete but unfortunately in strong winds the artificial grass moved about so it was off to the shed again to see if I had anything I could use to fix it down and I have this long piece of aluminum which we pulled off our old Conservatory which we demolished a few years ago and aluminum can be cut using regular woodworking blades so I'm going to rip off the piece that I don't need and that left me with this which is going to be the perfect shape to hold down the artificial grass I guess what I've made here is basically called a floor threshold I'm going to drill holes through the mortar line in between the paving slabs that's just so that it'll be easier to repair if we ever want to get rid of the catio in future I had some rule plugs and I can fix it down with some more decking screws this piece isn't long enough to span the whole length of the catio unfortunately but we can fill in the gaps with some other stuff it's really surprised me just how much the cats love laying on this stuff maybe I could have just bought this and not bothered with everything else oh but Hazel did eventually find her way up the ladder by the way so that's the catio mostly finished there are still a few other projects that I want to tackle I'd like to add some kind of bench seat to sit under the window it'll be a nice place to sit and also it'll be easier for the cats to jump down from the windowsill I'd also like to make a couple of lounge chairs to sit over here and in terms of access for the cats it'd be nice if they could let themselves in and out of the space but that would mean either putting a cat flap through the wall or possibly getting a new glazed unit to fit into the French doors you might have seen the cat grass in the video the cats really love nibbling on that and I'll leave links below to the seed that I bought to grow that we've also got a cat mint plant which the cats absolutely love as well I just want to wait for that to grow a little bit bigger and then I can put that in a big pot out here too you might have also noticed I added some hanging baskets here and there with some artificial plants in just cheap ones from Ikea and I just drilled some holes in the bottom of the pots so that they shed the water but yeah this was one of those really enjoyable projects absolutely loved it and I hope you enjoyed watching it thanks for watching [Music] thank you

Channel: Rag 'n' Bone Brown

Views: 249,027

Keywords: woodworking, uk, british, youtuber, keith, salvaged, reclaimed, wood, make, making, how, to, ragnbonebrown, diy, rag n bone brown, rag & bone brown, catio, cat adventure playground, cat enclosure, cats, cat, cat playground, cat ladder, cat rope bridge, cat penthouse, cat house, cat toys, cat play area, catio for cats, indoor cats, fiv, mickie, hazel, cat outdoor pen, cat pen, outdoor cat enclosure, cat garden

Id: gvrd27jFm5M

Length: 13min 52sec (832 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023