I’ve decided to slow down work on the new cat house, as I need to spend more time on consulting and Dejal apps, and this isn’t urgent, since the cats already have a heated shelter and raccoon-proof feeder. But I am still keen to get this finished, and am enjoying working on it, so will do at least a few hours on it each weekend.

Yesterday I added wheels to the maintenance door; the whole front of the shelter portion of the structure. As mentioned in my previous post, I was originally going to have it swing open, but decided to make it slide instead, for weight reasons. So I got some little casters to make it slide more easily, and cut notches out of the bottom for them:

Here’s a closer view; you can also see the cat door temporarily in place (to check the fit):

I added a strip of plywood to hide the casters:

I also added a thin board to the back of the deck, to act as a track for the casters (and make the door the right height):

Here’s the door in place, opened:

And closed:

That’s basically it for this time. My next priority is a second beehive stand (for the two new hives we’ll be adding), and a rail for this door to slide on when open. Then probably the facades and trim. I mentioned last time that I was thinking about doing roofing next, but I think it’d be better to do that after the walls are painted. (I was going to do it before the facades due to the flashing at the back of them, but I realized I can build that as another separate piece, so can be lifted off for roofing.)

With my slower pace, I probably won’t finish this project until sometime in May, but that’s fine.