Backyard Catio – Part 10

The cat enclosure has a roof!  And what an ordeal THAT was!  Not an ordeal, really, just… well, OK, it was an ordeal.  In terms of the big home improvement stores, I’m definitely a Home Depot gal.  Not for any reason other than there’s 2 close-ish to me, and the Lowe’s is more of a pain-in-the-ass to get to.  However, I’ve grown accustomed to my 2 local Home Depots and know where to find almost anything I need.  I’ve spent hours wandering their lumber aisles and electrical aisles and nail/screw aisles like a kid in a candy store.  Unfortunately they don’t carry the polycarbonate roofing panels I wanted for the cat enclosure [they do at Home Depot’s further away].  But my local-ish Lowe’s does.  And since I dislike driving any further than I need to, I went to Lowe’s.  Well, let me back up a few steps.

We got let out of work early yesterday so I headed first to Home Depot for some supplies for my enclosure door [that’s Bonkers’ tail to the left]:

I’m not sure what kinds of braces will work best for the door so I bought 3 different kinds.  I’ll return whatever I don’t use.  I also got more Simpson StrongTie screws, since they worked so awesome for the frame braces.  Then I headed up the line to Lowe’s.

I was SO excited to find their big display of corrugated polycarbonate/plastic roofing materials.  They had clear, white and grey, in 8′ and 12′ lengths.  Since neither of those will fit in my little Honda, I went up to the lumber service desk and asked them to cut 2 of the 12′ ones in half for me.  And they were like “sorry, we can’t cut those”.  Um… OK?  They suggested I borrow a friend’s truck.  Um… No.  If I can’t do it myself, I don’t want it!  So I went back to the display and read through the brochure.  It said you can cut the panels with a utility knife or snips:

       

Score!  Now where to find me some snips…  I figured if they won’t cut them for me, I’ll cut them myself, dammit!  Take that, Lowe’s!  After what felt like half an hour of wandering the store I finally asked where they hide their damn snips and a weird little clerk pointed me in the right direction.  Then I picked up a mini 6′ measure tape [which is actually kind of cute], paid and left.  I noticed a wood cart/rack thing in the parking lot, right near the door, so I hauled the ungainly panels over there and got them set up to cut:

       

       

They were fairly easy to cut – especially with the huge-ass tin snips I bought!  And once they were cut, they easily fit in my car!

        

The panels come in “good, better, and best” and I grabbed 2 of the “best” by accident.  But it’s turns out to be a good thing because [according to the very helpful brochure] they are virtually impossible to break, can handle wildly varying temperatures, and can handle a snow load.  Perfect!  Plus they block 100% UV rays so the kitties can relax and not, um, get sun burnt?

Once I got them home, Bonkers instantly approved.  He loves ANYTHING plastic:

Once I had them out in the yard, I lay them on top of the cat enclosure and realized I’d have to cut them smaller.  I decided to lay them the short way vs. the long way – my 4 6′ panels lined up nicely across the top.  I used the wax/grease pencil Abbie gave me last year for stained glassing, which worked perfectly for marking the panels for further cutting:

       

Then I cut them to the right size, placed them back on the roof of the enclosure, got up on my little ladder, marked where I wanted screw holes with the grease pencil, put them on the ground, drilled pilot holes where the red marks were, and lay them back on top:

        

Then I got to screwing:

       

It took 50 minutes to cut the 4 panels down, pre-drill the holes, and screw them to the enclosure.  I overlapped each panel by 2 ridges.  The last panel was too wide, so I cut that down to size before screwing it down.  So now the enclosure has a roof!  A beautiful crystal clear polycarbonate roof that I can sprinkle birdseed on and watch the cats go nuts 🙂