Yearly Archives: 2009

How To

The cat house – part 8

This is part eight of a personal carpentry project whose stages were recorded on video: building a cat house for our two kittens. Here are the other parts:

In this post, you’ll see the finished cat house, hear a bit more about the thinking behind the project, and find out my final opinion about what I’ve built. At this point, the cat house is pretty much complete, although a couple of small touches — like a frame around the window and a rubber door at the entrance — still need to be done. This means there will be a part 9 at some point in the near future, likely within the next 1-2 months.

As mentioned in the videos and in one of the first parts, the cat house was built using both leftover and reclaimed wood and thermal insulation. Pretty much everything I used in its construction I already had lying around my yard from ongoing renovations to our home. The only things I bought specifically for it were the two casters, the asphalt roof tiles, and the wood screws, which added up to a cost of 100 RON or about $33.

See this video on blip.tv, SmugMug or YouTube.

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Thoughts

A mummified rat

In the process of replacing our roof tiles, I found a mummified rat. It’s stiff, fairly well preserved, and it’s the second one I found (I threw away the first one out of disgust). It’s probably the combination of the warm and dry air in the attic that kept it like this. I don’t know how old it is. It could be only several years old, or it could be hundreds of years old. (Our house is over 200 years old.) It looks like it’s going to hold together for another several decades, if not more. You may not want to look at the photos if you’re easily disgusted.

mummified-rat-skeleton-1

mummified-rat-skeleton-2

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How To

The cat house – part 7

This is part seven of a personal carpentry project whose stages were recorded on video: building a cat house for our two kittens. Here are the other parts:

In this video, I’ve already completed all of the carpentry work and the cat house is assembled. It’s also been stained and it’s about to be treated with wood wax. Lots of details about what’s been done and what’s about to be done are offered in the video, such as what I’m going to do about the entrance and how the roof has been mounted and how it seals against heat loss.

See this video on blip.tv, SmugMug or YouTube.

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How To

The cat house – part 6

This is part six of a personal carpentry project whose stages were recorded on video: building a cat house for our two kittens. Here are the other parts:

In this video, you can see the three layers of insulation in the side walls: the 2 cm boards at the exterior, the polystyrene layer, and the 1 cm boards nailed over the polystyrene and secured to the 2cm exterior boards with wood screws. Most of the interior joints have already been caulked. Next up is finishing the interior, then sanding and treating the exterior.

See this video on blip.tv, SmugMug and YouTube.

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Lists

Condensed Knowledge – September 27, 2009

This is a summary of articles I read and found interesting during this past week. The list is shared from among my feed subscriptions. I only share a certain number of articles in each of these posts, so if you'd like to see more, visit my full Google Shared Items list.

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