Custom Baby/Pet/Cat Gate
My house uses forced air for both heat and AC. Air is cycled through the house both by pushing air into rooms, and sucking it back out through a return vent. Return vents in a hallway create a negative air pressure that draws air from rooms with closed doors through the gap at the bottom of the door. My doors have a ~1.5 in. clearance from the floor for this purpose. Even with this gap, unfortunately, each room stays either warmer or cooler than if we had left the door open.
With this is mind, we’d like to leave the door open to my son’s nursery. However, we have two curious cats who love to explore and hop into his crib.
Cat fur is obviously not desirable in a newborn’s bedding. (I’m ignoring the fact that he is sleeping in a cradle in our room until he’s old enough.)
It seems that pet gate companies are primarily concerned with dogs, and the maximum height is 41”. According to some Amazon customer Q&As, many users say their cats can leap these gates within hours of putting them up.
The only manufacturer I’ve found of taller gates prices them incredibly expensively - $180 for a 48” gate.
I built this bad boy for $50, and it has the added ability for any user to build to their desired height.
The materials are quite simple:
- Rubbermaid 20-in x 4ft Tightmesh wire shelving x 2
- 6 ft. pipe insulation
- Pipe insulation tee x 4
- Command hooks that move
- Zip ties
My doors are 30 in. wide, and when the two pieces overlap, they form a 32 in. span.
Attach the tees to the corners and cut the pipe to length for each side.
Affix the Command hangers horizontally near the top on each side as an extra support latch.
And voilà! Custom cat gate! The pipe insulation prevents the wire shelving from scratching your floor, as well as your hands on the top. The hooks (allegedly) won’t damage the trim, and should prevent a determined feline from hooking and pulling the gate away from the frame.
I may go searching the great internet for some white pipe insulation to make it look slightly nicer, but this will do for now.