The Maine Coon Guild, the website dedicated to Maine Coon Cats

This article was sent in by Dave Richardson. Dave and Gill accquired two Maine Coon Kittens, they came to live with them in the summer of 1999, (since then thier family has now grown to 4) They wanted to be able to let the kittens out to play, but they were concerned about their safety. So they set to work on planning in a corner of their garden, a safety area  for the cats to play in. If you live close to roads, railway tracks, or any other dangerous areas why not keep your cat safe. Dave explains how it was all done.
The priority in the design for the enclosure was not only for a safe secure area to protect the cats from the dangers of the outside world, but also to construct something which fits in well with the garden as opposed to a straight  forward wire mesh cage. Hopefully we have achieved both, we haven't had any escapes yet !
Probably the most time consuming part was the planning stage, but having a CAD (computer aided design) system to hand was most beneficial, otherwise the planning would have to be done using graph paper. I first measured the garden courately, including existing fences, garage, shed, back of the house, i.e., all the areas which will be used in containing the cats.

Phase 1

First was a trip round to our next door neighbours to ask them nicely if we can add 2ft in height to the boundary fence (as it belongs to them) and to show them the designs for the garden enclosure, and within 2 hours and 2 bottles of Chablis, they agreed. They actually gave the OK within 5 minutes, but the rest of the time was spent describing Maine Coon cats and why we are going through all this trouble re-designing the garden. With this design, it is important that the tops of all the posts are level as they will be used to support the trellis roof, and if uneven would give a poor appearance Luckily enough for me, the existing fence was fairly level so adding the 2ft high 6ft long trellis work was quite simple.

Phase 2

This involved cutting a 6ft x 2ft trellis panel to 4ft to fit above the 6ft x 4ft panel. Two 6ft X 2ft panels were then secured above the 6ft X 6ft panels, and the end trellis panel was cut down to 3ft X 2ft and screwed and braced to the gate panel. A further hinge was added to this top panel. A 6ft X 2ft panel was also used above the shed (only 6ft high) this was cut to shape so that the very top was 8ft high and level with the rest of the structure.
I then made an 8ft X 2ft gate to fill in the gap between the shed and garage, this was also hinged to provide a small storage area. 6 more Met Posts were driven into the ground, and the 8ft posts inserted, once they were all level, 3in X 2in cross beams were screwed on. It was decided that all the cross beams would overhang the fence posts by 3ft, that would be the distance the cats would have to crawl upside down (once they have scaled the 8ft posts) to get over the top of the trellis roof.

Phase 3

Now comes the hardest part, lifting and screwing the 6ft x 6ft trellis panels on top of the 8ft high posts (2 person job). On the side fence, I came in 8ft by using 6ft X 2ft panels in addition to the 6ft X 6ft panels, this was because the garden path is 5 ft away from the existing fence, and a 3ft overhang was required. ( I did not want to secure the 8ft posts onto  the garden path slabs). The whole construction was then treated using Cuprinol fence & timber preserver (Do Not use creosote for obvious reasons), treating the roof trellis panels before they are erected. Once all the construction work was finished, all that remained was to cover the entire trellis work in 2in square plastic coated wire mesh which comes in 3ft X 30ft rolls. Don't use just plastic  mesh, as this will eventually split in adverse weather conditions enabling the cats an easy escape. In the spring we will plant climbers and develop the borders and even possibly add a gazebo within the  enclosure. In all this took about 4 weekends from start to finish, lets hope it's was worth the effort