Saturday, April 24, 2010

How to Keep Cats from Falling 11 Stories

Our exciting new pad in the Big City has a huge terrace (30 x 19) that will be my escape hatch - a place to step outside and feel the unobstructed sunlight on my head.  I can't wait to grow my urban oasis, but there will be lots of challenges.  The first one being that there are no screens on the doors to the terrace (how high do bugs fly, anyway?) so if we open them up to enjoy the fresh air, our two cats will be outside in a flash.   When I arrive next week, I want to construct a barrier above the terrace wall so they won't go through or up and over.   The wall is only 42" high, so it won't even slow them down. They have been cooped up in there with my husband while I sell our house and complete the move, so I know they are frantic to get outside - just like I will be, if I don't make this happen.   And there are no do-overs, since we are 11 stories up.  It has to be right the first time.

Another consideration: we have a neighbor right next to us with the same size terrace, so we can't block their view, i.e., no rolls of bamboo or woven grass fencing.   And I don't want anything horrid out there, so that rules out of lot of options right off the bat - like chicken wire, chain link, etc.  Plus there is the whole problem of how to anchor it on a concrete surface up in the sky.   I had to come up with something novel.   I think I have done just that, although I won't know for sure until I try to assemble it next week.

I literally spent a couple hours wandering in Lowe's going from the fencing to the plumbing to the hardware sections, working on the solution to this.  The fencing I will use is this.  Small enough holes so they can't get through it, so it just needs to be secure and tall.  It is 44", and will overlap with the wall by about 6", so I will have an unclimbable (New Word Alert) barrier approaching 7'.  Sharkey is a good jumper, but he can't clear 7'.

Now for the secure part: I have come up with an idea for legs that will substitute for stakes that need to be pushed into the ground.  I will take some pictures of those next week when it is all set up.

What I want to show right now is how I made the anchoring base for the legs.  I got all the $1 rectangular flower boxes I could find at local dollar stores (thanks for driving all around town with me, Dad), and five 50-pound bags of quick-setting concrete.  I cut up some rigid plastic tubing from the plumbing department, and used silicone caulk to stand the tubing in the flower boxes.  They leaned a bit sometimes, so I braced them up straighter with some gravel for the first few, but soon found it didn't matter.




 I mixed up 10 pounds of the concrete with water and put it into each flower box.  While putting the concrete into the box, I  put a finger over the holes in the tubes to make sure concrete didn't get in there, and that they stayed where I wanted them to stay.  I could straighten them up if they were still leaning.  In some of the boxes I used only one tube, but in others I put two.  More about that later.  Quickcrete concrete mix sets up quickly, so it is best to mix up small batches that you can comfortably stir, carry and pour.  And be sure you put the water in your mixing container first, then add the concrete powder.  I used two old plastic cups that held about probably close to 8 ounces, one for water and one for the dry concrete mix.

Here is my recipe for about 10 pounds of mix (not including water and tile weight):

Put 2 and 3/4 cups of water in a bucket.
Add 3 cups of concrete mix and stir it with a gardening hand-trowel.  The mix is powder and gravel, and will be very easy to stir at this point.
Add 3 more cups of concrete mix and stir it up just until there are no dry spots.
Add 3 more cups of concrete mix. Now it will be a bit more difficult to stir, but get everything in the bucket thoroughly wet.
Then add 1 last cup of concrete mix and stir it in completely.  Scrape that gardening trowel on the edge of the bucket to remove the concrete.  Then, drop into a second bucket full of water.
Now use a rectangular trowel, which you can find in the tile tools section.   Scrape the sides and bottom of the bucket and give it a final stir.
You have about 5-10 minutes to get it into your mold or container before it starts to set up.  Tamp it down with the trowel.  Then immediately fill your mixing bucket with water, and drop the rectangular trowel into that water.
Top the concrete with some tiles, pressing them into the concrete but not so much that they "sink".
Now go back and rinse out the mixing bucket and both of the trowels, and you are ready to mix up the next batch.

After about 10 minutes or so (just about when you get the next one poured), go back and verify that the tube is standing as perpendicular as you can get it.  I threade a long rod down into the hole and "eyeballed' whether it appeared to be straight.  You can adjust it a bit and jiggle the container to get the concrete to settle around it in its new position.

I love the way the tiles gave them a 'finished' look.  I especially love the ones with these green/blue and white river rocks.  What is it about rocks?  I just love them.

I got these as samples and intended to use them for the floor of a shower, but that was one of the projects I never got to do.  So I am glad to have these portable works of "art" to take with me!





                 Here's the line-up about halfway through the process.





















 I made 21 of the rectangles, and 4 round ones.  All souvenirs of some of my favorite tiles.
I feel good about being able to mix and pour 250 pounds of concrete in an afternoon.  Definitely a cardio AND strength-training session.  I will admit that my hands ached the next day.  But they are done, they look pretty, and will be a critical piece of the puzzle that will allow me to rapidly assemble either 1.) an Outstanding Fence, or 2.) and Unmitigated Disaster.  My dad suggested adding chain and selling them as rowboat anchors if the fencing thing doesn't work. 

1 comment:

SangriaMonster said...

Love those! Keep us in the loop as the project unfolds.