Cat Housing

Last Summer my brother decided we should move house (we share a house).  So we started the arduous task of finding a house suitable for the cats and with plenty of garden.  

After viewing several we finally agreed on one and so moved onto the next phase - designing new cat runs to fit the long thin garden (14' x 180') and even more difficult - find someone to build them!!

Below follows the transformation of this long thin piece of turf, into the 'Phase 1' cat runs.  Phase 2 will commence this summer, when two new stud houses are erected for those two young men Joey and Bruno.

 

 The calm before the storm ..............
David gets to work digging up the paving and turf and digging out to make everything level, as the garden sloped away quite severely.
The slabs are down - and steps are added to where the cattery will start.  It doesn't look like much of a slope - but it does when your digging it !

and there's still some grass left to mow :o{
I still managed to keep a small area at the bottom of the garden - just for the humans!!  This will be a nice quiet area for the summer, with nice smelling plants and somewhere to sit and chill out :o)
The cattery was built by a local tradesman, who happened to have his workshop a one minute stroll from where I work, so I was able to pop over and supervise the building and 'tweak' areas of concern, he erected the whole thing in his building for me to approve, prior to installing at my house.
The cattery arrives - of course the day we chose to install it, it had been forecast with gale force winds.  Fortunately the cattery sits in a dip in the garden, so is well protected with the hedging and the surrounding trees (which had been pruned down so that they weren't directly overhanging the buildings).
How many men does it take to erect a cattery?  - answer 2, the rest were there to drink tea - and the boss was there to supervise !!
'Ere Terry, does this bit go 'ere?'

'Who forgot the bl***y roof?'
'shall we leave him in there and throw away the key?'
'how long have I got to stand here with me arms up?  the bloods rushing away' !!
Hooray - they didn't forget the roof.
This will look lovely when it's finished and the hanging baskets go up.
Someone commented that planes flying over might mistake the cattery roof as one of the runways at East Midlands airport.
It will be possible to divide the big shed into two smaller units if required, otherwise the internal doors can be opened up so that the cats have one large area.
Watch out for the next installments ........   The electrics go in and the National Grid loses power over night :o}

 The cats are in and are destroying everything in site :o{ 

Mac attempts to see how far he can spray !!

 Colin has lots of new things to pee on :o{

So, Phase 1 is finished and now we await Phase 2 ............

 

we seem to have a bit of spare space here

guess what would look nice here ?

brilliant - 3 new houses start to go up .........
It's a long walk, but worth it, to reach the fairies at the bottom of my garden :o)  oooh sorry boys, you're not fairies, but so sweet, like little Angels - well, as much as a Rex can be like an Angel :o}
Each run has a nice little covered outside 'hidey hole' for cats to sit on those 'chillier/wetter' days, rather than basking in the sunny day of summer.
The stable door allows fresh air, but also gives a bit more privacy for the discerning boy ........

Beautifully finished,the runs are easily cleaned after those little 'accidents'.
Phase 2 of the Cat runs was built by a different contractor -

http://www.pads-n-paws.co.uk/websitecats.html

I found a brilliant new guy locally in Long Eaton, Notts - Pads n Paws - cat owners/breeders themselves, they know exactly what you want, or didn't realize you wanted. 
NB:  Whatever happened to that "nice quiet area for the summer, with nice smelling plants and somewhere to sit and chill out" ?

Well, I guess the cats always come first :o)