I installed my first cat door

In the townhouse, we had a cat door originally installed by the previous owners leading to the cat litter in the basement. This worked out well for all of the three cats that we had in the house while living there. In the new, we have been trying to finalize where to drop litter boxes for our current feline knuckleheads. We ultimately decided on a basement storage room, but how to provide easy access? More cat doors!

How do you do it? You need the following:

  • a pet door (go buy the right size)
  • jig saw (with a blade to clean cut wood)
  • drill (to make the initial holes to get your saw blade in there)
  • level (to ensure your cutting lines aren’t slanted
  • pencil
  • ruler (straight lines)
  • painters or masking tape (to protect the door’s finish/paint along the edges you’ll be cutting)
  • Youtube.com (because you may feel better like I did after watching an instructional video)

It took about a week for me to get off my butt, commit to the work, find an evening when I don’t pass out, and tamp down the fear of severely messing up doors in the new house. Of all of those reasons, it was mostly my fear of messing up the doors. I’ve used a jig saw only once on that fence post. After I watched one good instructional video on Youtube, though, the task didn’t seem so daunting.

On Wednesday night, I gathered all of my Indian bravado, and got to work. It took about 2-3 hours as I carefully checked and rechecked, but I actually finished one door.

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Cat door #1

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