I must be tired, for a minute there I was thinking about another kind of cat house and what a demolition there would look like. YOUR vision is much more adorable!!! Makes me miss my orange guy we lost last year.

I can't see the photos you posted, but my reno has been Disneyland for my cats. When workers are here I have to put my two full-grown kittens in a closed room, since they are indoor only and would only get into everything. When the workers leave, they are let out, eyes big as saucers, and begin to explore. Their absolute favorite is the doorless cabinets. They are in and out, hiding, pouncing. I'm sure there will be some long faces when the doors go back on. Although, they know how to open cabinet doors and drawers, so I'm probably still in for it.

Now if I could only keep them off the new counters. It seems my sink grid is a deterrent from curling up in the sink.

My old cat isn't the least bit interested.

Your black baby reminds me of my Lucy,
I miss Lucy so much. Lucy was short for Lucifer.
No, i'm not a satanic ritualist.
When I was a little girl the Disney movie Cinderalla
had just come out. I had just gotten a new kitty and
named him Lucifer from the movie.

It has been 25 odd years and I miss him still.
Your picture reminds me how wonderful life was with
him.
~boxer

I've posted so many pictures of my cats looking over the work that they got nicknamed the "junior inspectors" by others.

We opened up several floors, and had to make sure all the cats were accounted for before closing things up. I have closed them in the attic a time or two, but that is easy enough to let them out.

Here is Tikka

and under the floor

boxerpups- life is certainly wonderful with cats, but I'm sure it is with boxers as well!
macybaby- Tikka is adorable! I do plan on 'trying' to keep Jake and Elwood out of the construction zone, but you know cats- the'll find their way in somehow:)

i can't see the pics you posted, can you re-post?

for those with indoor only cats with construction going in, be sure to take precautions to keep them safe. i heard horror stories about cats getting out and lost so i was manic about keeping mine sequestered in a bedroom anytime anyone was in the house working.

my site supervisor pictured below, along with a "kitchen before" favorite hiding place. he does not like the new latches on the cabinets, he cannot open them now!

My cat is enjoying exploring the empty, doorless cabinets as well. There is one open on both sides and he loves jumping to the upper shelf and going through to the other side.

That's his new route to the door.

Somehow I thought this was about the Mustang Ranch being torn down...

The peninsula cab's the fave since you can go in one side and come out the other.

I too would love to see the kittie pics, rocketmom. I have 3 cats, one was bored with the hole notion and slept in the guest room the whole time, one was scared and hid under the eaves, and Ocho supervised every aspect of the project.

Linelle, Babuska and Macybaby, I love those kitties!

Something we found that keeps our cats from opening doors of cabinets are magnetic latches. They offer just enough resistance to opening that the cats leave the doors alone. They also seem to work as makeshift childproofing in our kitchen---although we don't any young children, we do have guests at times who do.

sail-away, I might have to look into the magnetic latches. The attached video was when the kittens were 7 months old. I didn't mind them doing this with the old doors, but when the painted ones go in, I'm not sure they'll stand up to the claws.

Here is a link that might be useful: Zephyr opening cabinets

Our cat is15 and she is pretty blase about the whole thing. We keep the upstairs bedrooms closed to minimize dust and the workers have put plastic on the openings to the kitchen. So that means she has been confined to the FR....where all the stuff from the kitchen is along with her litter box which we brought up from the basement since she would not have access through the kitchen, the LR, and DR where temp kitchen is. She mainly hangs out in LR, but when she wants to "get away from it all" she lays down in the hallway upstairs. Even when they removed the plastic, she did not go in the kitchen, except in the beginning when the subfloor was gone...we couldn't find her...she had made her way to the basement by jumping down on all the junk down there.

My old cat (Bunny) is 15 and she sleeps through all the noise and workers coming and going. One of the younger guys ADORES cats and speaks baby-talk to her every time he walks by. It's very sweet. She doesn't seem interested in any of the changes. My kittens have to be sequestered while the guys are here, because they are so in your business.

Linelle, I love the video...definitely something my Belle would do. I have one old cat and two young ones. The oldest yawned through the reno, the other 2 were locked in a bedroom everyday until there were no easy hiding places accessible.

We did a whole house reno a couple of years ago and have been back in the house now for about 16 months. One of our cats, just 3 days ago finally went into the kitchen. He hasn't walked into the kitchen for 16 months. he's been in the DR, the eating area and the sitting area but not the kitchen. We had to move their food dishes into the DR because he refused to go into the kitchen. The rest of the house is ok - just not the kitchen.

I had one terrifying day when our walls and floors were open for mechanicals when I thought my Julius was stuck in the walls somewhere. Thankfully we found him after everyone left. Poor little guy must have been terrified. We have to keep our two cats locked up in a spare bedroom during the day--I hate it, but with so many people opening and closing doors, I can't have them roaming the house when the work is going on.

drainbead, what a scary thing that must have been until you found Julius. Straight out of Edgar Allen Poe!

Cats locked in a spare bedroom is what I do, too. Sometimes there are wails of protest, but I think they're glad to be in there when the power tools start up.

I love all the kittie photos! I don't know what happened to mine, they are still on photobucket, so here they are again!

We put up a temporary door (pre-hung hollow core door) at the "beginning" of the bedroom hallway (our house is a Hi-Ranch, or Bi-Level; bedrooms, kitchen, DR, LR, on the upper floor). We locked the cats up with us at bedtime (easier than chasing them around first thing in the morning), and they had access to that 1/2 of the upstairs; three bedrooms, hallway, bathrooms), and let them out after workers had gone home for the day. Smartest thing we did.

Well, my guy is almost 19 so he wasn't so much interested as annoyed. He did lose all fear of strangers though with so many guys going in and out.

He came up with a creative way to deal with the noise and sleep interruptions:

{{gwi:1577740}}

{{gwi:1577741}}

Here are a few more pics of the cats helping out. We DIY so no strangers to worry about, and our cats are allowed out if they want to go. They loved it when we had walls open, but so did the barn cats LOL!

Oliver in the attic

Nikki (rip) "guarding" the faucet

Here is Oliver and Cami -

And from the other side

And Tikka again - they'll check out anything!

macy, those are precious! I love the partners in crime with their backends exposed and the real live photo on the other side! A ladder and a hole are just too tempting apparently!

Luckily, my 19 year old can't be bothered by the demo/remodeling projects that continually happen in my house! He's both an indoor/outdoor kitty, with his own door so that if he gets too annoyed with the noise, and the weather is nice, he'll go outside.
Here is Bert, in a cozy spot in the garden

And again, another spot in the sun

Now that his hearing is going, he rarely hears anything unless it's a whistle or a loud whine, and is often found on the heated bathroom floor when the weather is not too nice. When he was little, though he would have been into everything- but I kept a whistle on his collar so that I always knew where he was!

Love all the kitty photos. Thanks for sharing.

Linelle, The magnetic catches work really well. We ended up putting two on each of the under-the-sink cabinets, as we realized they would function really well as an added layer of protection when small children visit. We have to encourage friends to "pull hard," when they encounter the resistance in opening those two doors, but we are used to it and don't really notice. However, single magnetic catches on all the others work fine, too---we just wanted some extra security on that one cabinet.

sail-away, thanks for the follow up. Do they glue or screw into place? When I had knobs, I would put a rubber band around the pairs to keep the cats out. Not a real pretty solution, but it worked. Now that I'll just have pulls, it's either the magnets or those looped kid-safe things.

Love all the kitty pictures. Our cat was kept upstairs in the guest bedroom when the various people who worked on our kitchen were here. He can't open kitchen cabinets, but he can open the sliding door in the kitchen. Max is an indoor cat, but we have a screen porch that he loves to go out to. After a couple of times finding the slider open in the winter with cold air coming in and thinking one of us left the door open, we finally caught him very patiently working with his paw and nose to open the door. When he got the door to move just enough he got his paw around the door and pulled it open. Now we lock the door so he doesn't let the heat out.

We accidently let Max out of the bedroom before the final coat of finish on the new wood floors dried. It had been 2 days, but apparently was not enough. We have permanent cat paw prints on the floor now. We will have to have the floors recoated with another coat of the topcoat to get rid of the paw prints. Next time we won't let him out too soon!

Linelle, They screw on. I wish I had a camera and could take a picture for you. On the door, there is just a flat magnet with one screw in the middle. Then the other piece is screwed into the side of the cabinet, with the magnet portion facing out and, of course, lined up with the magnet on the door. You really don't notice them when you open and close the cabinets, unless you're actively looking for them---certainly a cleaner look than the rubber bands or child locks, and also providing much easier access to the cabinets. It's been some time since we got them, but I think we found them at Home Depot or Lowes.

We had to sequester our cats on one side of the house when the contractors were working because one would have been terrified and the other two would have wanted to "help."

Now that the work is done, Emmett is glad he has his extra large sunbeam back (all the better to warm his extra large tummy): {{gwi:1577749}}From 2012-01-29

Don't have a kitty picture, only a kitty/renovation story. Papageno is usually a very quiet cat--easily spooked and often would hide for long stretches, panicking me. He and brother Tamino were both indoor cats, so I eventually belled Papageno, so that even when he disappeared in the house somewhere for a day (or more), I would hear his bell and know he was there and OK.

When my last house underwent a major addition and renovation, the workers cut several square holes into the oak floor in the living room, hall and dining room area for central AC. But we ended up putting the AC in the ceiling and the holes were open for weeks before the oak was finally patched. Meanwhile, Papageno discovered that one open hole was a shortcut to the back basement and another led to a great new hiding place...between the drywalled ceiling of the basement family room and oak first floor above.

Since I never knew exactly when those holes were going to be closed back up, every day, I'd move a box or a bucket or something over the open holes to prevent Papageno from sneaking in and getting caught and a big sign for the workmen to keep them covered. Everyday,when I came home from the office, the sign would be gone, the hole uncovered and Papageno nowhere to be found.

One day, the holes were patched...and you guessed it Papa couldn't be located. It wasn't entirely unheard of for him to lie quietly somewhere for hours and hours, so I didn't panic yet. But throughout the evening, I thought I sort of could barely hear his bell tinkling. By AM...I called the GC , told him I was sure Papa was caught between the ceiling and floor. To his credit he showed up within a half hour, cut a hole in the drywall below the place where the floor was patched and shone a flashlight up there...no Papa.

But I was still sure he was there, so I wouldn't let him patch the drywall right back up. Sure enough, when I came home from work that night...Papageno had gradually crept back to the opening, and was sitting there in the ceiling, sadly mewing.

He still disappears for up to 24 hours or more, sometimes...but thank goodness, has never been in danger of live entombment again!