Renovations and Pets: Suggestions?

[Russian Blue]

We're just finishing up 5 years of renovations to our home. We ended up replacing everything and anything.

Do you have a basement you could keep them during the inside work? When we had Nakita, we kept her either at the cottage or upstairs. After she passed away, we decided to do all the major work (knocked down walls and added a full glass solarium to the back of the house) before we brought any new pets home. That reno lasted a month.

Then we adopted Steve and Gigi. They instantly became renovation helpers and didn't mind the noise one bit! We demolished the kitchen and moved it to the other side of the house. Most of the time the cats were kept upstairs. You want to make sure they are limited to any exposure to small objects and dust. Steve seems to want to eat everything off the floor so we were very diligent in cleaning the work area any time the cats were around.

It's really best to keep them in one area, away from the work. Even if you can take them somewhere else for the major renovation days, that would help. You don't realize how much (and how far) renovation dust spreads until after it settles. I'm thankful we're finished the inside renos! Don't want to do that again.

Good luck!

[Grace]

I agree about using the basement. We had new hardwood floors put in the entire house 18 months ago. In the middle of January - so even the boys didn't want to go out in the cold. We set them up with food and water down there. The litter boxes are there all the time, as well as beds, so it wasn't totally new to them.

The noise above, though, almost drove all of us nuts at times.

Good luck with the renovations. Looking forward to seeing pictures when it's all done.

[Freedom]

Hmmm, there are almost no windows in my basement, and none accessible to the cats. Not sure if they'd appreciate being stuck down there for 3 weeks (give or take). Will think on it, thanks!

[Grace]

We have no windows in our basement. I turned on lights, and let them back upstairs when the guys left for the day.

Do you have a second floor? If so, maybe they could be sequestered up there - then they could get lots of light.