Old House Handyman: How to build an outdoor 'catio' for your feline friends
Kittens and a busy highway aren’t a good mix.
Our daughter who lives on the family farm was excited about being there and being able to have pets after living for years in apartments where pets weren’t permitted.
So she moved into the old farmhouse, rescued two sickly kittens, and soon realized that if she let them go outside, they could easily end up flattened by a passing tractor-trailer.
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Soon after that realization, she came up with a plan for an enclosure so that the cats could go outside, but not too far. Daughter No. 3 is a researcher and planner. When she launches into a project, it is only after hours of online research, looking up plans and advice in books, watching YouTube videos on the subject, and talking with experts.
Her research goes deep into design engineering, the types of best materials, the best finishes, and the best hacks from experts who have done the work many times.
That’s how she came up with the plans for a “catio.” It’s an enclosed patio for cats – and at least a human or two who want to visit with the pets in a confined space outdoors.
Last weekend, all of her plans began to take shape as she and I framed up the catio. It’s about 11x12. It’ll have three walls of mesh – both carpenter’s cloth and traditional window-screen material – to keep cats in and insects and other animals out. The fourth wall is the east wall of her house. And the catio will have a translucent roof, because her goal is to maintain grass in that space.
Cats love grass. They eat it, and then, at our house at least, they york it up in what appears to be nature’s way of helping cats with their digestive system – and forcing me to clean up flecks of grass embedded in cat puke. Yay!
But hey, our daughter wants her cats to be happy, and eating grass is a part of that.
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So, she and I spent most of last Saturday digging trenches for a cement-block barrier between the catio and the outside world, and drilling three “helical piers,” which some folks call “ground screws,” to serve as the foundations for three 4x4 posts that would define the walls of the enclosure and serve as the roof supports.
The helical piers are 50 inches long. They are painted steel pipes with a big drill bit on one end and a U-shaped base for 4x4 posts on the other. Our daughter had used these piers in lieu of pouring concrete footers for her front-porch staircase supports. And it was cheaper to buy a five-pack than to buy them individually.
She used two on the front porch and had three left for the catio.
To drill the piers into the ground, our daughter positioned each one, placed a short 4x4 on top of each, and hit each one several times with a sledgehammer to get the drill bit started. Then, we centered an 8-foot 2x4 in the U-shaped slot on top. And then, we each grabbed an end of the 2x4 and pirouetted until the pier was so low in the ground that I felt like I was doing a combination of crab walk and limbo dance.
Despite the rocky soil on the farm, we were able to drill the piers into the ground with relative ease. When we hit a rough spot – most likely a sandstone rock – our daughter grabbed the sledgehammer and powered us through the impediment.
As I left her place on Saturday evening, the wall/ceiling supports were in place, and she was in a position to install the remaining roof supports and build out the walls on her own.
With any luck, the catio will be enclosed in time for the kittens to romp in the grass – in a safe space – before the snow flies.
Alan D. Miller is a former Dispatch editor who teaches journalism at Denison University and writes about old house repair and historic preservation based on personal experiences and questions from readers.
youroldhouse1@gmail.com
@youroldhous
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Old House Handyman: How to build a catio for your furry friends
