Lake View Catio Planning Phase
Cats love the outdoors, after all they are just a few steps away from being feral. I knew we would be building some type of outdoor pet enclosure (catio) to satisfy their need to play outside yet protect them from harm. After surfing the web and speaking to friends we decided to build our own custom catio on the back porch. The prefabricated pet enclosures available on-line were expensive and did not offer exactly what we wanted. Debbie and I sat down at the kitchen table and started to sketch what we imagined a back porch catio attached to our home could look like. Our backyard was on a large creek going into the lake with a beautiful view from every room and we didn’t want to block that. The cats would need easy access from the house to the catio so they could move freely any time they wanted without us open and closing doors. The four rooms in the back of our home where the kitchen dining area, living room, master bedroom, and bathroom from left to right. We decided the dining nook with a bay window would be the best place for the catio and pet door, located on the southeast corner of our house. The back porch was a raised deck with about an eight-teen inch roof overhang.
Once we created a simple rough draft of what we wanted I took some measurements and began to draw a plan with dimensions. It was going to be big, about fifty square feet of floor space and over seven feet tall. There would be two doors, a pet door from the dining nook and an access door outside for us. We had to decide if its frame would be made of wood or metal, plastic was not even considered. I had always wanted to learn to weld so I decided to go with 1.25 inch square, .065 inch structural steel. The pet door could be the standard mechanical flap or and electronically controlled one. The simple mechanical type would be OK but we wanted to try the more expensive electronic version that are programmable to read the cats ID chip and restrict access based on a schedule. Since we lived on the lake the mosquitos were a menace in warm weather and we didn’t want them outside late at night where they might become ill. So, after a few days of research and planning we were ready to begin our adventure to build a custom catio for our Russian Blue kitties.
Another consideration was the home owners association and it’s by-laws. Any structural addition to the home would need to be submitted to a review board for approval. This is common for many neighborhoods so we reviewed them. Since we were enclosing an existing structure (the back porch) we decided there wasn’t a need to submit a building plan. If the catio had been in the front of the home facing the street we may have considered submitted a plan for approval.
Next: The design phase
