# Diy cage?



## Rimmer (Jul 26, 2014)

I am going to turn a HUGE barbie house into a rat cage, any ideas? I will be putting contact paper on the wood to waterproof it a bit more, any other ideas?


----------



## aliceinwonderland (Dec 17, 2013)

Do you have pictures of the house? I love DIY projects but seeing what you're working with might help inspire more ideas.


----------



## Rimmer (Jul 26, 2014)

I am not sure how to upload pictures, but it is a 3 story barbie house, with 7 rooms, each room is about 2 feet high, there is a huge attic thing. The house looks a lot like this one, only a LOT bigger







I am not sure what wood it was made out of though, it said on another forum to cover the walls with contact paper and it would be fine, any thoughts?


----------



## QueenBea (Feb 12, 2015)

besides covering the front with bars, not sure what else. good luck!


----------



## EmS (Feb 10, 2015)

Thats an awesome idea! Are there ramps or anything to get from one level to the next? I don't see any way to get up and down in the pic, but i know thats not the exact house you're working with.


----------



## Rimmer (Jul 26, 2014)

There are stairs and ladders to get from one leve to the other.


----------



## aliceinwonderland (Dec 17, 2013)

Very cool. I would recommend getting pvc/vinyl coated welded wire fencing to put across the front. A staple gun would probably be the best way to apply it and make sure your wire cutters are sharp and you wear gloves or you'll end up with lots of blisters on your fingers from cutting the wires(like I did!). I constructed one big door for my DIY cage but for something that size you might want to have a couple smaller doors on the different levels. To make a door, I just cut away a section of the fencing to make a whole the size I wanted. Then I used another section of the welded wire that's a good inch and a half wider than the hole on all four sides and I just attached it with zip ties on the side that I wanted to hinge but I guess you could use the crimps that people use for cage construction. Then I just used this video tutorial( 



 ) to make spring latches to attach around the other three sides of the door to keep it securely closed. I just sacrificed a few wire coat hangers for the materials to make the latches and practiced several times until I developed a technique that worked for my project. I saw some pink wire coat hangers at the store the other day and may buy a couple to make new latches just for appearance sake.


----------



## LilCritter (Feb 25, 2014)

I'd put linoleum on the floors so that it's easy to wipe up any wee.


----------



## Rimmer (Jul 26, 2014)

I am almost finished! The rat cage calculator said it could comfortably hold 10 rats. I will upload some pictures when it is done!


----------

