Patsy Kline's personal kitty ladder was commissioned by my friend Gail. She was hoping to build a cat ladder entrance to a 16 foot second story window. Patsy lives with 5 dogs and one of those dogs is a bit of an aggressive wiener dog named Daisy. Gail wanted to give Patsy access to the outside free from the other dogs, so she could can enjoy the wonder of the world. She looked online and found lots of examples of cool cat ladders. She imagined using a treated 4x4 post and I encouraged her to allow me to find a piece of wood that would work for the job.
I
went for a visit to the Hoh Rainforest and stayed at my friends
homestead near Ruby Beach. We went to Ruby and found an awesome piece
of driftwood. While walking back on the beach the Ranger informed us
that it was illegal to take any wood from the beach. There are enormous
piles of logging remains peppering the beach all over the Olympic
Coast. I found it ironic that we allow logging companies to cut down
huge tracts of land, but to pick up pieces of the logs on the beach is
prohibited. My friend Daren and I decided to go to the logging slash
fields to pick up there remains more directly.
With
some wedges and sledges we went to a spot that he knew and searched
through the fields of old growth stumps. Crews of people come out and
cut the stumps into blocks. They bring choppers in and fly them out
because the old growth wood is so valuable on the market. Some guys go
in and cut the blocks, then split them into shingles on sight and sell
them. There was a split log, that had crashed to the ground and
splintered. We used the wedges to further split out 2 pieces We hauled
the two 17foot pieces to the road, stumbling through the obstacle
coarse of logging rubbish. About 5 weeks later my friend was
coming into town and he delivered the two pieces in my front yard.
I used a draw knife and skinned the pieces. It was the largest pile of the best smelling kindling I've ever made.
With the beams skinned I made all my measurements for the mid level kitty porch. Gail wanted a spot about 8 feet up where Patsy could hang out above the dogs for a safe vantage. Next, I sharpened the froe I made a few weeks ago and split out the shakes about an inch thick for stairs.
I thought a lot (with my consultants Timmy and Austin) about how much room a kitty needs for a stair. I decided that 6 inches by about a 4 inch width seemed reasonable.
I
needed to make a knee brace for the mid level kitty platform, so I cut a
length of one of the cedar beams. Next I chiseled out a notch in the
beam for the knee brace to fit into. Then I drilled a whole with the
knee brace in place and whittled an an ash peg for the connection.
I cut the steel into 18 15" pieces, drilled all the holes then forged 18 brackets.
I tapped the holes so (1/4 20) stainless screws would attach the cedar shakes to the stair bracket.
I met with Gail and we connected the shakes to the brackets to make our complete stair then chiseled notches in the beam for the brackets to fit into.
With all the stairs and brackets attached, all that was left was to finish the porches.
I held the beam up while Gail held the small porch platform on the sill and I took measurements for a connection brace. I cut out the brace and fit it with a wide gouge. I screwed it together and heaved it up one last time to connect the porch into the window sill.
I love this idea! What kitty wouldn't love having their own porches! Great way to use up all that wasted lumber.
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