On Monday, March 17, 2003, at 23:11:24 PM, Melissa wrote:
>... covered an old wood baby gate with fabric to put up between the FFZ
>and the bathroom.  Tonight I did another one to put at the top of our
>stairs so we can keep the bedroom door open and get plenty of fresh air.
 
Another solution that works very well for me is a dutch door.  They're
the type of door with a top that opens and closes separately from the
bottom.  As far as the ferrets are concerned, that door is always closed.
The cats, meanwhile, not being so vertically challenged, hop over and can
go through the laundry to get to their cat door.  Human fashion, I open
the bottom half when I need to go through, and just watch out for furry
door-zoomers.
 
Dutch doors are rare nowadays.  But I just cut a standard door in half.
Cut the door through the stile, not the panel, and rehang the door with
four hinges so each half has two.  (Actually, rehang the door with four
hinges first, then go back and cut it in half.  It will move better that
way.) You can put a bit of a shelf on the bottom half of the door to
dress it up a bit.  Then you will need away of fastening the doors.  If
the doorknob was on what is now the bottom half of the door, all you
need is a bolt to tie the two halves together when you want the door to
function as a unit.  If the doorknob is on the upper half, you have to
decide if you want to move the doorknow, have two doorkknobs, or fasten
the lower half with a hook & eye.  The last is what I use, since it's a
low traffic door (except cat traffic).
 
This presupposes that you own your house, or have a _very_ understanding
landlord.
 
-Claire
and Sam and Frankie and MIssy (who all come running when they hear me
open the hook)
[Posted in FML issue 4091]