Productive Procrastination!
Doing better today.
I emailed Des and my uncle W about my lighting dilemmas, so I can get advice from actual professional people (a theatre lighting person and an architect, respectively). YAY for knowing nice, interesting people!
As a byproduct of that, I now have an annotated floor plan, so if anyone is curious I can post that somewhere.
Also, one ( Read more... )
I emailed Des and my uncle W about my lighting dilemmas, so I can get advice from actual professional people (a theatre lighting person and an architect, respectively). YAY for knowing nice, interesting people!
As a byproduct of that, I now have an annotated floor plan, so if anyone is curious I can post that somewhere.
Also, one ( Read more... )
Yeah, about cat trees. :P A friend of mine found a website online that they seem to be reasonably priced on...but of course I forget the URL for it now haha (not that it entirely matters. I've purchased a grand total of two cat trees in my life time despite having five in my house. All hail "I don't want this cat tree, do you?")
I have a fairly long, narrow house. I already have one particular area in the corner of the dining room (near the window there) with a chin-high (on humans) cat tree that allows Izzy and Toast access to jump on top a hutch just next to the tree. My thought was to maybe run what would essentially be a looooooooong carpet-covered shelf 'forward' down the wall of the dining room (over the window) towards the front door, and 'backward' in the house, over the hutch and then around the corner down the hallway. I'm not sure what I would do with it back towards my room. It'd be kind of cool to maybe cut a cat door in the wall above the door and continue the cat highway into my room, but that may be more work than I want to do. Alternatively, I guess I could either end the highway with a wider shelf over the door where they could sleep if they want or make stairs down from the shelf to the floor, although that would narrow an already almost claustraphobically skinny hallway even more.
/ramble
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A long carpet-covered shelf would be pretty easy to do, but I hear you on the design challenges of claustrophobically skinny hallways. Maybe you could bridge the hallway (well above head height) and loop it back to a bigger area? The key to cutting a cat hole in the wall would be making sure you don't run into a stud, since there'll be at least two over the door. And figuring out something to line it with. You could dead-end the highway, but that's not so great if you ever have cat-on-cat aggression problems... hmm... You could always start with the dining room bit and see how it works from there!
BTW, if you do this I want to see how you do it and your progress, for all the same reasons. :P
Alternatively, you could drop $200 to impose your gaming addiction on your pets.
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Poor KITTIES. :(
I'd like somewhere for them to be high and out of the way in the dining room, but, again, a drafting table destined for the studio is taking up space there now.
But once the studio is done, that room will free up!
Finding space for the cat trees was pretty important to me--first it was Arnold, who liked to be high. Toast likes it a little (and it makes him have to jump, so, hey, exercise), but Izzy is a fiend. The cat trees are her life. I think if I didn't have them, she'd go crazy and drive me crazy as well (even with the trees, she is 'challenging'). She climbs them, sits on top of them, scratches them, and for the ones with cubbies (four) sleeps in them.
My biggest challenge has literally been a small footprint--they tend to only take up 1-2 sq. ft of floor space and go up rather than out. I tuck them into corners: there's one right next to the entertainment center (between the center and another built-in counter along the wall), literally in a corner between the hutch and a wall, just to the side of a big picture window in the dining room (other side from the one by the hutch), under the picture window in my back bedroom, from floor to ceiling next to that one.
Hah. I should take photos. :) Maybe once my house is clean this weekend.
Maybe you could bridge the hallway (well above head height) and loop it back to a bigger area?
In theory, yes, but the opposite wall loops back into the kitchen. I think the problems with that should be self-evident (death from above and gas stoves are incompatible XD)
Alternatively, you could drop $200 to impose your gaming addiction on your pets.
If I had $200, it would not be used to buy geeky pet toys. XD OTOH...those shelves are exactly the kind of thing I want, except longer.
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Once the studio is done I'll be doing *lots* of furniture rearranging. I'm really looking forward into having more space for everything, including kitties. :) Currently my desk and computer and all the crap that accumulates by them are in my (small) bedroom; there's a drafting table in the dining room; there're at least four feet of art reference books in the living room, two feet of art supplies in the dining room... and then two bins of stuff in the rentaroom and bins and easel in my folks' basement.
Y'know, those shelves aren't bad. Price-wise, you'd pay something similar if you got nice looking brackets and ready cut shelving to make your own that size. Once you get longer it's a whole other story. Hardware stores will cut boards for you, which is the biggest tool-requiring bit if you don't mind a boring square edge. It looks to me like they've got the plush/carpeting wrapped around a sheet of thinner stock, like MDF or something. The biggest expense for doing it that way would probably be the brackets, since you'd have to have 'em every 32" or so.
If you want longer and are worried about space, you probably don't need it to be nine inches deep, either. Deep would be nice for a resting area, but for a highway... well, I suppose it depends on the chubbiness of your cats. Mine pass each other on the windowsill, and that's only six inches.
They're not *graceful* while they do it, but no one falls off. :P
As for $200 -- which I could spend so many different ways, none of which is a mario cat wall -- you could also buy the same companies Indiana Jones Cat Rope Bridge for a similar cost! :P
EDIT to add: In re cats and kitchens, oh yes, we don't want them leaping down there! I had the stove apart to fix the oven ignition recently, and Calliope REALLY wanted in that 'cave' (some cats must have up. Calliope must have In). The only thing that scared her off was the unplugged vacuum cleaner nearby.
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ABUSED, I SAY. ABUSED.
And at least long skinny hallways are good for chasing balls down!
Very true! And also very good for chasing each other down, haha.
Once the studio is done I'll be doing *lots* of furniture rearranging. I'm really looking forward into having more space for everything, including kitties. :)
Yay, more space! :)
Hardware stores will cut boards for you, which is the biggest tool-requiring bit if you don't mind a boring square edge.
And, honestly, I don't. Fancy-shmancy would be lovely, but I can't afford fancy-shmancy; I'll take utilitarian over nothing every time and twice on Sundays. Some nice made to measure boards, brackets attached to studs, and carpet scraps glued down to within an inch of its life is all I'm looking for. Maybe some sisal bits for claw sharpening if I'm feeling adventurous.
If you want longer and are worried about space, you probably don't need it to be nine inches deep, either. Deep would be nice for a resting area, but for a highway... well, I suppose it depends on the chubbiness of your cats. Mine pass each other on the windowsill, and that's only six inches.
Toast is still a hefty chunk of a cat (although down to 16 lbs from his salad days of 21 lbs) but even he has no problems navigating my 4" wide window sills. I'd probably want to go for 6" wide, and how I'd envision the highway running it would be high enough not to obstruct people's heads or light sources (thanks to the hall running down the middle of a house with what I would approximate is a 12' high vaulted ceiling (not unlike the one depicted in the link, except with a steeper angle and running all the way from the front of the living room to the back of my bedroom).
you could also buy the same companies Indiana Jones Cat Rope Bridge for a similar cost! :P
Ohhhhhh, that one I was admiring. :)
But now I just thought that Izzy would find a way to chew through the ropes, because--Izzy. (She's destroyed one set of Levolor-style blinds from chewing through the pull and her favorite fishing wand toy, the rope is being held together by at least three knots at this point)
(some cats must have up. Calliope must have In)
Izzy needs up. And under. And In.
She's like every bad habit you could ask for rolled up in one cat.
Oh, I should've added: as part of my abuse and neglect, I also fuel their drug addiction. Calliope has a problem. Someone's going to show up at make me send her to rehab.
Then she'd get to meet my three. XD Toast has been a pot fiend...well, for as long as I can remember, and the old stoner has rubbed off on the young whippersnappers to varying degrees. Feeding him fresh catnip is the surest way I have to prompt him to eat, because like any good pothead, any time he has fresh 'nip, he gets the munchies. (Literally--soon as the catnip is gone, off he goes to his food bowl to chow down). Izzy is almost as bad, while Tali nibbles about half a leaf delicately and she's done. ("I can quit anytime.")
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I'm definitely thinking you could do a section of cat highway as a weekend project. Get your measurements right, get them to cut a standard board to length at the hardware store -- you'd have to pick either 7.5 wide or 5.5 wide, because you can't buy an actually-six-inch board, and I don't think they'll rip 'em lengthwise -- and go to town with a stud finder to place the brackets. Since cats don't care if it's perfectly level, you could place it by measuring *down* from the ceiling -- that way it looks level to you, regardless of what your house is actually doing.
My cats go MAD for the catnip. Definitely not like stoners -- they get high and want to disembowel things. I say Calliope is worse because Monkey has never tried to steal the jar from me. Calliope is convinced that she can bypass her dealer and get it from the source. She'll slip one paw in the jar, one paw around it, sit back on her haunches, and YOINK.
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Well, if it makes you feel better, the reason I have vaulted ceilings is because I live in a manufactured home and have no attic. :) I essentially have a few inches of shell that defines both the inside and outside of my house.
Which is why it gets so bloody cold in the winter. I would kill for the ability to insulate my house.
you'd have to pick either 7.5 wide or 5.5 wide, because you can't buy an actually-six-inch board
5.5 would probably be plenty wide enough. I'd just have to figure out where to put/start it. The logical place would be around the hutch and the cat tree there, because that would be the way to 'get high', but that wall is relatively short (maybe 6-7' wide, with 4' of that taken up by the top of the hutch and the cat tree next to it). So I'd either need to wrap it around into the hallway -or- carry it up the wall towards the front door.
Pictures. Definitely pictures are necessary. XD
they get high and want to disembowel things.
I've heard of cats that do that, but damn. :)
I say Calliope is worse because Monkey has never tried to steal the jar from me. Calliope is convinced that she can bypass her dealer and get it from the source. She'll slip one paw in the jar, one paw around it, sit back on her haunches, and YOINK.
Hahaha. Does she try to then dump it all over the floor and roll around in it? One of my friends' cats did that with a big clamshell they had of catnip on top of an entertainment center.
And whyyyyyyy was I not using this icon? Which was me catching Toast in the act of having found a dime bag of dried 'nip up on my bathroom vanity in the old place, jumping up where he wasn't supposed to be, tearing it open, and definitely inhaling.
Then there is this:
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All of my jealousy just immediately dissipated. I prioritize insulation over almost everything. Code requires me to upgrade the insulation in my attic as part of the studio project, and I'm thrilled! Of course, first I have to fix the vent baffles (ugh) and rake out the existing insulation, because Calliope keeps getting into the attic and digging herself little cat-width trenches. It's like the Western Front up there, only white and itchy. My entrenching cat has lowered my R value by at least 8. *headdesk* The energy audit guy laughed aloud when he saw it -- says he's never seen an attic that looked like mine.
It all comes back to cats eventually.
Pictures. Definitely pictures are necessary. XD
Yes! My mental picture isn't clear enough.
pictures
hehehe, stoner cat. The expression in that icon is *priceless*.
I don't know what Calliope would do with the nip jar, because I never let her take it. She wasn't finding it herself and stealing it, she was trying to steal it directly from me. We have little tug-o-wars.
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