KHBz
Teenage Guinea Pig
Finally ready for occupation! My husband and I have spent the past four weeks building a hutch extension. In September we had bought a 4x2 hutch-and-run combo from Home and Roost as we thought this to be the best option for the very limited space we have. It was immediately apparent that it was not fit for purpose. It was of a flimsy build so we immediately mega-insulated it with second walls and roof, all packed with 2.5 cm celotex (left over from loft insulation). But the main problem was obviously the size as the overhanging roof may have been 4 x 2 but the interior dimensions turned out to be 108 x 51 cm, a chunk of space further taken away by the ramp hole. (I partly closed that hole and built a mezzanine over it.) They were still babies for the two-and-half weeks that they lived outside, so it was ok, and when they took over my outside study (converted from a shed), the ramp hole was permanently covered and the hutch opened onto a large C&C type run. Now that they are moving back outside, almost 10 months old, it is totally inadequate and so an extension was necessary ...
My husband took some persuading because he said that we did not have enough materials ... Lock-down had just been imposed and so we were unable to buy anything. So, here we are with an extension made out of, variously: plywood of all different sizes and thicknesses, including the back of a wardrobe; struts of all different lengths, depths and widths, including my father’s rather fine and muddy garden stake; rusty and flacking shelf-brackets from the back of my father’s garage (painted and well out of reach of even the most acrobatic popcorning piggy); and every single scrap of everything that we had left over from the shed conversion years ago. This includes the final offcuts of thin tongue-and-groove panelling and an entire length of picture-rail. (I got carried away with that one: it is upside-down on the ceiling above the door, as part of a wall and as the trim all around the roof.) The walls are lined with somewhat clashing vinyl samples, acquired when I was indecisively choosing a floor for my shed-study. On the ceiling there is felted underlay of the type that you use to protect tables. Not that the piggies will appreciate that but it offended my sensibilities to have an exposed ceiling of dark wardrobe-back, light plywood and lots of grey duck tape.
Two of the walls and ceiling are double layer so that between the patchworked-together plywood pieces and the tongue-and-groove panelling there are sheets of 8mm polystyrene which I had saved from the packaging of a full-length mirror. Within the double layer of the ceiling, there are the final, itty-bitty pieces of 2.5 cm celotex – just enough. The roofing-felt was left-over from a wendy house, and joy-of-joys, I had run out of the purple paint that my daughters had chosen for the hutch! Instead, I found that I had a tin of cream Sadolin wood-paint that had been intended for the window-frames 11 years ago (whoops). I am very ashamed to say that the decorative front wall is made up of, not just upside-down picture-rail, wardrobe and section of decorative skirting board, but two antique Russian drawer fronts ... Sorry! But they were being thrown away by my neighbours and were in an awful state, sawn into etc. The piggies are not, however, having the 4 lovely brass handles – not even for foxes, cats and rats to use as a door-knocker.
The whole thing comes out at a right-angle from the living-area of the hutch. The door has not been moved (although there are now piano-hinges to cover the bigger gap left with the door in its new position). It both opens right back against the sleeping-room area and closes in on the old hutch (the extension can therefore be cleaned without interruption from popcorning piggies.) We maximised space by having the walls slightly overhang the much-reinforced run, so that what was not even a 4x2 hutch, in a footprint of 4x4, is now pretty much a 6-foot hutch taking up the same amount of space. Result! The only problem is that subtle, tasteful, discrete, blending in with the foliage, it certainly ain’t! In such a small garden it dominates. But it could be worse: at least it is not solid purple.
And the whole thing cost £ Nothing. All I bought, on ebay, were duck tape, wood glue, staples, a few brackets and two piano hinges.
Enough of all that. Here are some photos. The panels on the door of the old hutch are my younger daughter’s paintings which I have finally had printed on aluminium. The new second ramp doesn’t yet have rungs because I couldn’t face sawing off my finger-tips along with the thin sections of wood required. It will have carpet until I can buy a length of suitable trim to adapt.
Russian drawer fronts, after and before:
Door both opening right back and shutting off the old hutch. There is a mezzanine in both sections:
It remains to be seen whether the piggies will like it. I hope it works for them.
My husband took some persuading because he said that we did not have enough materials ... Lock-down had just been imposed and so we were unable to buy anything. So, here we are with an extension made out of, variously: plywood of all different sizes and thicknesses, including the back of a wardrobe; struts of all different lengths, depths and widths, including my father’s rather fine and muddy garden stake; rusty and flacking shelf-brackets from the back of my father’s garage (painted and well out of reach of even the most acrobatic popcorning piggy); and every single scrap of everything that we had left over from the shed conversion years ago. This includes the final offcuts of thin tongue-and-groove panelling and an entire length of picture-rail. (I got carried away with that one: it is upside-down on the ceiling above the door, as part of a wall and as the trim all around the roof.) The walls are lined with somewhat clashing vinyl samples, acquired when I was indecisively choosing a floor for my shed-study. On the ceiling there is felted underlay of the type that you use to protect tables. Not that the piggies will appreciate that but it offended my sensibilities to have an exposed ceiling of dark wardrobe-back, light plywood and lots of grey duck tape.
Two of the walls and ceiling are double layer so that between the patchworked-together plywood pieces and the tongue-and-groove panelling there are sheets of 8mm polystyrene which I had saved from the packaging of a full-length mirror. Within the double layer of the ceiling, there are the final, itty-bitty pieces of 2.5 cm celotex – just enough. The roofing-felt was left-over from a wendy house, and joy-of-joys, I had run out of the purple paint that my daughters had chosen for the hutch! Instead, I found that I had a tin of cream Sadolin wood-paint that had been intended for the window-frames 11 years ago (whoops). I am very ashamed to say that the decorative front wall is made up of, not just upside-down picture-rail, wardrobe and section of decorative skirting board, but two antique Russian drawer fronts ... Sorry! But they were being thrown away by my neighbours and were in an awful state, sawn into etc. The piggies are not, however, having the 4 lovely brass handles – not even for foxes, cats and rats to use as a door-knocker.
The whole thing comes out at a right-angle from the living-area of the hutch. The door has not been moved (although there are now piano-hinges to cover the bigger gap left with the door in its new position). It both opens right back against the sleeping-room area and closes in on the old hutch (the extension can therefore be cleaned without interruption from popcorning piggies.) We maximised space by having the walls slightly overhang the much-reinforced run, so that what was not even a 4x2 hutch, in a footprint of 4x4, is now pretty much a 6-foot hutch taking up the same amount of space. Result! The only problem is that subtle, tasteful, discrete, blending in with the foliage, it certainly ain’t! In such a small garden it dominates. But it could be worse: at least it is not solid purple.
And the whole thing cost £ Nothing. All I bought, on ebay, were duck tape, wood glue, staples, a few brackets and two piano hinges.
Enough of all that. Here are some photos. The panels on the door of the old hutch are my younger daughter’s paintings which I have finally had printed on aluminium. The new second ramp doesn’t yet have rungs because I couldn’t face sawing off my finger-tips along with the thin sections of wood required. It will have carpet until I can buy a length of suitable trim to adapt.
Russian drawer fronts, after and before:
Door both opening right back and shutting off the old hutch. There is a mezzanine in both sections:
It remains to be seen whether the piggies will like it. I hope it works for them.
